High School Chastises 10 ‘Pepsters’ for Shoplifting Disneyland Trinkets : Adolescence: The 30-girl Woodbridge dance team had performed at the park. Two were caught and eight confessed after adviser confronted squad.

Ten members of the Woodbridge High School dance team were disciplined after admitting they shoplifted “trinkets” from Disneyland last month after a performance in a Magic Kingdom parade with 90 other “pepster” team classmates, the principal confirmed Thursday.

Only two of the shoplifters were caught and detained by Disneyland security during the April 12 incident at a Main Street curio shop, Woodbridge Principal Gary Cops said. But the next week a teacher overheard two students on campus refer to other girls involved in the stealing, and the dance team adviser confronted the entire 30-member squad that day, Cops said.

Eight more members confessed that they had shoplifted items “like key chains, that sort of thing,” from the same shop, Cops said. And all 10 students were subject to discipline.

Cops said the girls’ parents were notified of the shoplifting by school officials, who held conferences with them and requested that discipline be meted out at home. Disneyland’s chief of security sternly lectured the students after the girls and their parents each returned personally to the amusement park to relinquish the item they had stolen, and every student served two full Saturdays of detention, Cops said.

“Disney security seemed to be appreciative that we were involved in this instead of (ignoring it). It seemed like they deal with this a lot,” Cops said. “We think we’ve dealt with it. They are all 14-, 15-year-old kids.”

Representing the Woodbridge Warriors that Saturday last month were 100 members of the school’s marching band and “pepster” squads: cheerleaders, song leaders and 25 to 30 dance or drill team members. Their role in the Afternoon Cartoon Parade was the final performance this school year.

After changing out of their red, gold and white uniforms, the 100 students and two advisers were invited to stay on and enjoy the park’s rides and amusements, Cops said.

Sometime later that day, two dance team members were caught shoplifting items from countertop baskets of a Main Street store, he said. Their parents were notified to pick them up but neither girl was arrested, Cops said.

Cops said two of the 10 will not return to next year’s dance squad because they are academically ineligible. Two more failed to make the squad during this month’s tryouts. The remaining six tried out and made the dance team, which performs at school athletic events and with the marching band during parades.

“The question was, should they be eligible to try out for the next year or not?” Cops said. “And we decided they’d served their discipline. They’re kids who made a mistake, but they served their time and let’s get on with school.”

He added that the students who tried out for the squad were given notice that any other trouble would be grounds for immediate ejection from the team.