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Students upset because it was raised above U.S. Flag.

Tensions over immigration reform heightened in the Phoenix area's East Valley Thursday when students raised a Mexican flag over Apache Junction High School — and then other students yanked it down and burned it.

"I know (they) shouldn't have burned the Mexican flag," said Jacob Stewart, a 16-year-old sophomore. "I heard it was raised above the American flag and that just irked me."

He said the turbulence was tied to debates going on in the state Legislature and Congress, where ideas ranging from offering illegal immigrants a chance at citizenship to making them felons are being floated.

Freshman Chelsea Garcia, 15, and junior Brittany Ramage, 16, said the unrest had more to do with long-running racial tensions at the school.

The week's events might have sparked some anger, Ramage said, "but kids aren't too deep about that stuff."

The Hispanic student who brought the Mexican flag said he was responding to a remark directed at him Wednesday. The flag-raising, flag-burning, and shoving match that followed happened before most students arrived at school.

Six students — three Hispanic and three white — will be disciplined, Principal Chad Wilson said.
Officials with the Apache Junction Unified School District would not specify what punishment the six face.

Wilson did say in a letter sent home to parents that there would be "increased supervision, including additional police officers, on the campus over the next couple of days."
School flagpoles have been lightning rods across the country this week, including an incident in which a Houston high-school principal was disciplined after he flew a Mexican flag underneath his campus' U.S. and state flags.

A new political awareness among students has also been grabbing attention, as thousands have walked out on classes to join rallies in Phoenix and elsewhere. More than 100 students from Mesa's Carson Junior High and Westwood High schools marched in protest on Mesa streets Tuesday.

When flags of States, cities, or localities, or pennants of societies are flown on the same halyard with the flag of the United States, the American flag should always be at the peak.  No such flag or pennant may be placed above the flag of the United States or to the right of the flag of the United States (the viewer's left). When the flag is half-masted, both flags are half-masted, with the US flag at the mid-point and the other flag below.

I think that for everyone in America that the American flag sybolizes that our Founding Fathers cared about this land of ours and were willing to fight for it. When I see idiots burning flags, it makes my heart ache. I have been in several countries and have seen the way others live. Anybody that says bad things about us should leave and go to one of those pitiful countries. Every country in the world knows our flag. It means liberty, freedom and hope to many. I am so thankful to our soldiers and their families that have lived their lives protecting our freedoms and our flag.

Amen DW, my husband is a retired Marine and he gets very upset when he sees an American Flag flying that is torn and tattered, as a matter of fact, he even went a bought a flag for someone one time whose flag was so torn and so tattered and dirty, that it made my husband feel like they we not being respectful. He may not have been right in going out and buying a flag for them, but he felt that an American flag in the conditions that flag was in should not have been flying. Some people don't know any better, others don't know how to respectfully dispose of a torn, tattered or dirty flag. But some people just plain ole don't have any respect for the American flag of for the country that offers them so much freedom. I am very thankful that God allowed me to be born an American.

AMEN!! sister!