“Because it made me uncomfortable,” Orange County teacher Kristin Pitzen said in a TikTok video that she later took down, explaining why she took down the American flag from her classroom.

She said to the camera, “I put it away somewhere I don’t remember, and I haven’t found it yet.” Her laughter covered her words.

During the reading of the Pledge of Allegiance in the morning, she said, she tells her students, “Stand if you feel like it, don’t stand if you feel like it; say the words if you want, you don’t have to say the words.” The Pledge of Allegiance is a sign of national patriotism.