Board Sets Rules for Pep Squad Selection After Death Threats

Santa Clarita school officials announced Monday that they will retain cheerleading squads at Canyon High School instead of disbanding them in a bitter dispute over picking head cheerleaders that led to death threats against a vice principal.

But the William S. Hart Union High School District board also formalized procedures for the selection of head cheerleaders, admonishing parents and students to accept the changes peacefully and put the dispute to rest.

In addition, the district offered a $4,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the man who telephoned Canyon High Vice Principal Dennis Thompson and warned him that “you or someone in your family will die” unless all current cheerleaders were allowed to try out for the eight disputed head-cheerleader positions.

Thompson received four calls with death threats, authorities said.

“This nonsense we’re going through has got to stop,” said Bill White, the school’s principal. “We’ve been talking about this problem for 30 days and I’m sick of it. . . . As parents, we infest our children’s minds with what we’re thinking and suddenly the other kid on the squad isn’t their friend anymore.”

The dispute erupted last month when Cynthia Wheat, an English teacher who took over this year as the cheerleaders’ coach, appointed eight of the 32 present cheerleaders to lead next fall’s squads.

After the issue escalated to the point of eliciting death threats, school officials threatened to disband the cheerleading squads.

Despite heated objections from some parents, the board Monday night let stand Wheat’s appointments but said that beginning in the fall of 1992, cheerleaders will compete for the “cheerleader captain” positions.

The board did not determine who will choose the winners, leaving that decision to the principal of the high school.

Wheat’s predecessor appointed three head cheerleaders each year and girls competed before a jury of members of the National Cheerleading Assn. for the remaining 29 positions as cheerleaders.

But Wheat had expanded the number of cheerleading positions to 42, eight of them head cheerleaders, with five of the new positions to be filled by tryouts.

That angered some students and parents, who wanted all the additional positions filled by tryouts.

The feud split the cheerleaders into rival camps, leading to calls for Wheat’s dismissal and the death threat against Thompson.

Under the district’s newly created procedure, cheerleading captains will be chosen from those who compete in tryouts after next year.

“I read this decision as saying that what Cynthia Wheat did was a mistake and you will do it right in the following years,” said Doug Froeberg, father of a freshman cheerleader who was not selected by Wheat.

Froeberg was one of about 65 people who attended a special meeting called by the district Monday night to announce a decision.

Board member Bill Dinsenbacher said in an interview after the meeting that Wheat is not to blame because the district had not established guidelines for her to follow. “If you don’t back up your people in the front lines, you’re going to run into trouble,” he said.

Wheat, who attended the meeting, declined to comment.

Her attorney said he interpreted the decision as supporting her.

Kristie Mercado, 16, one of those Wheat chose to be a varsity cheerleading captain next fall, said after the meeting that some cheerleaders want to bury the feud. “A couple of girls came up to me and said they were really, really sorry,” she said. “They said, ‘I don’t hate you. I didn’t mean to give you a hard time.’ ”