MOORPARK : Grade Standards for Cheerleaders at Issue

School cheerleaders in Moorpark have to meet stricter academic standards than the athletes they cheer for--a discrepancy that school board members are expected to discuss at their next meeting.

Cheerleaders at Chaparral Middle School have to keep their grade-point average at 3.0 or get kicked off the squad. The school’s boys’ and girls’ basketball team members, however, have to maintain only a 2.5 average.

At Moorpark Memorial High School, students must have at least a 2.5 average to become cheerleaders and maintain a 2.0 average after they are picked. But none of the athletic teams require players to start out with an average higher than 2.0., Principal Cary Dritz said.

The higher standards for the middle school cheerleading squad, which has three students each from the sixth through eighth grades, caused one parent to complain recently to a school board member.

The parent, who said she did not want to be identified, said her daughter did not qualify for Chaparral’s cheerleading team this year because her grade-point average was below 3.0.

“My little girl was just heartsick,” the mother said. “There are some kids that are just not going to get a 3.0,” she said, adding that her daughter had a grade-point average above the 2.5 required for athletes.

She suggested that cheerleading be considered a sport.

But Chaparral’s cheerleading adviser, Linda Graham, disagrees. “They’re more than just athletes,” Graham said. “They really do have a leadership role.” She said she hoped that the academic standards would help “lose that image of the ditsy little cheerleaders running around in their short skirts.”

“What about dispelling the image that all football players are stupid?” the mother of the student said. “Nobody’s interested in dispelling that.”

But school officials said cheerleaders perform year-round, while the various school sports are seasonal. The longer schedule makes it harder for cheerleaders who are average students to keep up their grades, they said.

Graham said two students were kicked off the middle school squad last year after their grades fell below a 3.0 average for more than half a quarter.

Dritz said the high school will consider soon whether to raise the requirements for sports. Already, he said, many of the school’s athletic teams have overall grade-point averages higher than 3.0.

District policy typically leaves such issues as cheerleading requirements to the discretion of each school, Assistant Supt. Charles L. Smith said. The school board is expected to discuss the subject Tuesday.