Board Urged to Let Teens Attend Graduation

An attorney joined parents of two disciplined students Thursday in asking the Conejo Valley school board to allow the teen-agers to graduate with their friends despite their role in a May 4 fight.

The lawyer, Lou Carpiac, told the board that the Thousand Oaks High School students had been punished too harshly for coming to the aid of a friend, Rick Coletta, who was stabbed in the neck with a woodcarving knife.

“There was a self-defense and defense-of-others aspect of this,” Carpiac said. “In a military context these people would have had medals pinned on them.”

Adam Knox, 18, one of the disciplined students, watched intently, wearing his green-and-white Thousand Oaks High varsity letter jacket. He was sitting beside his mother, Andrea Knox, who burst into tears as Carpiac concluded his passionate 15-minute speech to the board.

Carpiac also represented student William Sperry, 19, who did not attend the meeting.

School board members listened impassively to the attorney’s plea. After Carpiac and the Knoxes left the meeting, board member Richard F. Newman explained the board’s silence in an interview, saying, “We don’t get into public debates on personnel matters, and students are personnel in this district.”

o o Staff members of the Conejo Valley Unified School District said the school board has little power to intervene in the situation, since, according to the board’s own policy, the superintendent has the final say over such disciplinary matters.

Supt. Jerry C. Gross has already denied an appeal by the students to return to school. According to parents, the district accused the two disciplined students of initiating a second wave of aggression by tackling the accused 17-year-old stabber. Other students then joined in, according to eyewitnesses, kicking the fallen student.

District officials said the punishment meted out to the two seniors is less severe than expelling students from the district.