42 Pupils Barred From Calabasas School Activities

Calabasas High School students who rode to a dance this month on chartered buses stocked with alcoholic beverages will be barred from extracurricular activities for the rest of the year, officials said Tuesday.

The ban affects the student body president, lead actors in this spring’s school play and athletes in five sports.

The sanctions were added to three-day suspensions ordered earlier by officials of the Las Virgenes Unified School District.

School officials said the punishment ends their investigation of the March 14 incident.

Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies who checked the buses with a high school vice principal allegedly found beer, wine, champagne and other alcoholic drinks.

Three 21-year-old chaperones were arrested after a fight with deputies.

Although the number of students aboard the buses was first put at 60 by school officials, an investigation showed that only 42 were involved, Las Virgenes Supt. Albert D. Marley said.

He said the activities ban will affect 10 members of the Student Council; 16 participants in a rock-music show called “Lip Sync ‘87,” scheduled to be staged today and Thursday; 4 actors in the spring play “Lil’ Abner;” 19 volunteer counselors in a fifth-grade outdoor education program later this spring; and 8 athletes.

Student body President Craig Diamond, 18, had planned to appear in today’s music show and had the lead in “Lil’ Abner,” said his mother, Doritt Diamond.

“It’s unfortunate our son was there. This was a group of kids who worked hard for their school for four years,” she said.

“But I don’t feel for one minute that the school district is in error. I feel the district has children’s concern at heart.”