Students to Turn Off the Tube for a Week : Leisure: The Laguna Beach Unified School District is encouraging youngsters, and their parents, to flip off the TV and channel their energies elsewhere starting Friday.

When she first began talking to Laguna Beach students about giving up television for one week, Maria Globus said they responded--to put it simply--with “horror.”

Another parent, Carole Moore, got a similar reaction. “A lot of them at the very beginning said, ‘No way. Excuse me.’ It was like total rejection,” she said.

Now, after weeks of preparation, parents, students and school district workers will soon get to test their addiction to what one called “the plug-in drug” when the Laguna Beach Unified School District launches its “TV Turn Off Week” on Friday.

The goal is to encourage families to flip off the television and plug into other activities. Promoters also hope to call attention to violence on television and to encourage youngsters to be more discriminating about what they watch and how they spend their time.

The project was spearheaded by Globus, who has twins at Thurston Middle School. In talking to children there, Globus said she discovered one youngster who watched 38 hours of television per week.

“Some children don’t get enough sleep, really, because they’re watching so much TV,” she said. “It fills time, it’s a companion. But it’s got its problems with it, too.”

Instead of spending what she said is an average of 15 hours per week watching television, Globus said students are being urged to take walks, write letters, read books and spend more time with their friends and families.

Promoters are hoping parents will take part, but Moore said she thinks getting them to cooperate may be more difficult.

“I think the parents are going to have a harder time than the kids are,” she said. “We’re trying to get all the family to participate, not just the kids (with) the parents sneaking off watching the news.”

The idea that a television blackout could catch on with their parents has generated skepticism from students. “The kids are saying, ‘I could do it, but my dad can’t,’ ” Moore said.

The school district is promoting the effort, distributing buttons to students and sending bulletins to parents and local businesses advising them of the program, Supt. Paul M. Possemato said.

“It’s really taken on a communitywide effort and we’re very pleased with that,” Possemato said. “The only drawback is, we chose the week when the Academy Awards is Monday, so it will be interesting to see how that plays out.”