Denial of Exemption for Cheerleader Who Got ‘F’

An article (April 7) that caught my attention dealt with the parents of a Woodbridge High cheerleader who seems to object to the Irvine school board’s belief that “ . . . the primary purpose of school was classroom learning.” I just happened to have read a Wall Street Journal article dealing with the controversy of schools attempting to teach moral values and what is right and wrong. The Journal article agreed with most educators that values should be taught to our children in the home.

Now here we have an incident where the parents decided they did not like the school’s rules, which had been in place for 10 years, and appear to be making strident demands that an exception be made, their daughter’s “F” grade be forgotten and she be allowed to do her cheerleading. The parents seem to blame the school board, the principal, the teachers.

The mother asks what was the teacher doing while Melissa’s grades were dropping from a “C” to a “D” to an “F.” The real question is what were Melissa and her parents doing while these grades dropped?

Melissa is a victim, but the culprits are not the school board, the teachers or the principal but disinterested and wrong-minded parents who have placed a trivial activity above the primary purpose of school--an education. In this case, the poor student is learning about the values and ethics of education from parents who don’t seem to understand their own role as parents.

M. WARTENBERGM

Brea