Accusations of Immoral Activity by Cheerleaders’ Coach Unfounded : Canyon High: Officials say parents’ allegations surfaced after Cynthia Wheat made her choices for pep squad captains.

Anger over the appointment of head cheerleaders at a Santa Clarita high school last month led to more than the widely reported death threats against a school official. The selections also prompted unfounded morals charges by parents against the 26-year-old cheerleader coach, said school officials.

The allegations against Cynthia Wheat, an English teacher at Canyon High School, were investigated by school authorities and were determined to be untrue, school officials said. But the claims, which led Wheat to obtain an attorney, reveal new depths of the dispute.

“The death threats were one thing, but they were probably just some stupid kid,” said one school official, who refused to be identified. “But to slander someone over cheerleading--that is really sick, and the public should know about it.”

The controversy was resolved earlier this week when the William S. Hart Union High School District board let stand Wheat’s decision to appoint eight cheerleader captains before holding tryouts for the 34 other cheerleading positions. The board said that beginning in the fall of 1992, cheerleaders will compete for the captaincies as well.

Today, the allegations against Wheat are dead, the parents and students involved are embarrassed and school authorities say officially that they wish these darkest elements of the controversy would not surface. None of the adults involved would comment publicly, although more than 10 school officials and parents agreed to be interviewed this week if their names were not used. Wheat has refused to comment.

The allegations about Wheat’s moral conduct spread last month in a whirlwind of rumors repeated by angry students and parents. The complaints initially reached school officials at an April 3 meeting between Canyon High Principal Bill White, Vice Principal Dennis Thompson and six sets of parents. The meeting--two days after Wheat announced the appointments--was held at the Canyon Country home of a couple whose daughter was among those not chosen to be a captain.

Several of those involved said parents at the meeting told White and Thompson that their daughters complained that Wheat, who is married and has a 9-month-old daughter, gave better grades to boys than girls in her classes, and insinuated that she had made sexual overtures to one male student, whom they did not identify.

They also alleged that Wheat told a classroom of students that “if the opportunity came along, she’d have an affair,” said one parent who attended the meeting.

“We were just trying to show them what kind of person she was because they wouldn’t believe us that she picked her favorites to be captains,” the parent said.

Alarmed by the claims, White and Thompson left the meeting planning to launch an investigation the next day by interviewing the parents separately and by talking to Wheat, district officials said.

But after White and Thompson arrived at Canyon High the next morning, a school board member told district officials of an alleged plot to frame Wheat by accusing her of improper advances toward 17-year-old Paul Pedevilla, a senior whose girlfriend was not chosen as a captain.

The school board member told The Times that he learned of the alleged plot from a parent sympathetic to Wheat. That parent claimed he overheard another parent saying, “Wouldn’t it be nice if there was something between Paul and Mrs. Wheat?” the school board member said.

School officials said Paul was interviewed immediately. The youth told school authorities that a parent had approached him at a neighborhood swimming pool earlier that week and asked him about his relationship with Wheat.

Paul, a student in one of Wheat’s classes, said he replied that he liked Wheat, but that she had always behaved properly with him and that there was nothing physical about their relationship.

In an interview with The Times this week, Paul said the parent, whom he declined to identify, asked him to attend the meeting with school officials at the Canyon Country home that night if he had any complaints about Wheat’s behavior. But Paul said he refused because “there was nothing to it.”

“The parents were just looking for any way to get her out, and if they couldn’t get her out by cheerleading, they were going to look for any other ways,” Paul said. “I doubt they ever really believed something was going on between me and Mrs. Wheat.

“Whether I think her cheerleading decision is right or wrong, I don’t believe in ruining someone’s career.”

Parents attending the meeting denied any involvement in a campaign to smear Wheat. “No one on our side would even consider doing anything of that sort,” one parent said.

After interviewing Paul twice, on April 4 and 5, school officials were satisfied that Wheat was innocent of any wrongdoing, they said.

Wheat’s attorney, Morris Thomas, called the allegations “an absolute lie” and said his client had been “totally exonerated.” Wheat and her husband have threatened to sue the school district if officials discuss the allegations publicly.

Michael von Bulow, the district’s personnel director, would say only that Wheat has been cleared of all charges.