2 La Verne Seniors in School Anti-War Protest Transferred : Discipline: The punishment was for refusing requests to return to class. Their families say they will appeal.

Two Bonita High School seniors were transferred to another school as punishment for refusing to return to class during a peaceful anti-war protest on the La Verne campus last week.

The girls’ families said Thursday they will appeal the decision by a Bonita Unified School District administrative panel, saying that keeping their daughters from graduating with their friends is too severe a punishment.

The panel voted Wednesday to transfer Denise Fitzgerald and Jaimie Bauer, both 17, to San Dimas High School.

School officials said the two students were among the principal organizers of the Jan. 15 walkout. Both had already been suspended for five days for their actions. Neither girl has had past disciplinary problems, officials said.

“We’re not going to rest till Denise is back in her school,” Dennis Fitzgerald said of his daughter. “It’s amazing they can let two girls with a combined weight of 180 pounds be a menace to that school. They said they were too dangerous an influence.”

About 250 students participated in the all-day demonstration, waving signs such as “War is unhealthy for children and other living things” and singing songs, including John Lennon’s anti-war anthem, “Imagine.”

The demonstration began about 8:40 a.m. after Bonita Principal Robert Lewis spoke about the Persian Gulf crisis from the school office over the public-address system. He asked for a moment of silence in support of the safe return of servicemen and women. Demonstration leaders say his remarks were well-received.

Then, without Lewis’ permission, Jaimie, who had been standing nearby, picked up the microphone and said, “Now is the time to save the world.”

By prearrangement, the demonstrating students left class. Using a bullhorn, Denise led the rally, which quickly became three-sided. A dozen students staged a counterprotest, backing a military strike against Iraq, and a third camp called for peace, but not at all costs, Lewis said.

After Lewis’ 11 a.m. ultimatum--delivered over Denise’s bullhorn--that students should return to class or face punishment, most students complied. But several dozen remained after Denise announced her intention to continue. Lewis later met with student representatives and agreed to distribute a fact sheet on the Gulf War, survey student opinion and allow a student-body debate on the crisis during school hours.

At Lewis’ request, police closed D Street, in front of the east San Gabriel Valley school, to keep students from being endangered by in traffic. Police arrested two non-students for refusing to leave the campus and briefly detained Jaimie for interfering with the arrests.

“This whole thing has been so blown out of proportion,” said Linda Raimo, Jaimie’s mother.

District Supt. Duane Dishno said the two students were disciplined for “endangering other students, repeated and willful defiance of authority and disruption of the entire school.”

“I will conduct my own investigation and render a decision,” he said.

The students have the right to appeal, first to the superintendent, then to the school board.

“I don’t want to come across as un-American,” Denise said. “I have friends who are in the Army and fighting. I just didn’t want it to come to this. I didn’t want anyone to have to die.”

Jaimie said school officials “made it such an outrageous bad thing I did, they could have looked at the good points,” that the demonstration aired student concerns peacefully.

Denise said she was being punished for standing up for her beliefs.

“You have all these things planned, where we were going for our senior trip and graduation night,” she said, “and in an hour and a half in that hearing it was all taken away from me.”