Northwest Elementary students learn about military service
BUTLER TWP — After an American flag was donated to Northwest Elementary School by Blase Szwaczkowski with the American Legion of West Deer Township, the school’s principal wanted to introduce students to military veterans of the community.
Students weren’t only going to speak with local veterans, a few even demonstrated a flag raising on Thursday, March 6, when the U.S. Marine Corps Color Guard came to the school with other veterans for student interviews.
Matt Martinez, principal at the school, said the small event was a way to teach students a little more about military personnel and let them get to know local veterans.
“My thought was we can’t just put a flag up, we should do some kind of project around it,” Martinez said. “We got some of our older students to do a project.”
Following the flag raising Thursday, which was conducted by fifth-grade students, the grade got to interview the veterans to learn more about their service. The interviews would be used for creative projects by the class, which Morgan Vatalare, gifted program coordinator with Butler Area School District, said were pretty open-ended.
“I kind of left it very creatively up to them — it has to fit on a sheet of paper but that was the only requirement I gave them,” Vatalare said. “Some of them want to write a narrative story, some want to do some form of artwork, so they will interview today and then put their projects together.”
Szwaczkowski, who is a family friend of Martinez, said he is always happy to speak to children to help educate people about the military and military service. He said he collects flags from people who want to get rid of them, so they can be displayed in the community instead of disposed of.
The background of every individual flag Szwaczkowski collects also helps tell the story of military service to students, he said.
“It’s a burial flag, because what happens is I go to estate sales or auctions, and a lot of people get a flag when a veteran passes away,” Szwaczkowski said of the one he donated Northwest Elementary. “So I take them all and a dry cleaner will clean every American flag, so this one actually laid on someone’s casket.”
Vatalare primed the students for their talks with veterans, which included Szwaczkowski; Martinez’s father, Dennis Martinez; and Butler County Veterans Services director and Navy veteran Shawnee Young.
“They were learning how to research for different things that interested them,” Vatalare said. “Fifth grade, we focused on interviews and really what does the flag mean to the veterans.”
The students’ work impressed Szwaczkowski, who said he was just happy to see a school address military service in the way Northwest is doing. He said the American Legion he is a member of is always prepared to teach youths about their work and the work of military personnel.
“It’s nice to see young people learn about our country and learn that there’s a service,” Szwaczkowski said. “We try to help out with young people and do different things, teach them American-ism.”
