8 Alemany Students Asked to Withdraw

Administrators at Alemany High School, run by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, have asked eight boys to withdraw from the school, or face expulsion, for their alleged involvement in a “dance crew.”

Four girls also were suspended and placed on “strict probation” for periods ranging up to eight weeks for their involvement with a student dance group known as II Romantik, or IIRK for short, administrators said Friday.

Most of the students are juniors or seniors.

Alemany’s 1995-96 parent/student handbook prohibits student involvement in “dance crews” or anything associated with gangs, said the principal, the Rev. Robert Milbauer.

The school fears that such “crews” are so similar to gangs that they could lead to gang-type violence, administrators said.

“One of the things that prompted us to take a strong stand on this is that, when students belong to groups like this, we’ve had incidents where other members of other groups come on campus, looking for our students,” Milbauer said.

“We had an incident like that last week,” Milbauer said, noting that two students from another school came onto campus wielding tire irons. Police escorted the two students off campus, he added.

But students associated with the group deny that IIRK has anything to do with gangs or violence. They describe the group as “a bunch of guys who like to hang out together, go to parties and dance.”

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A parent of one of the suspended girls, who did not wish to be identified, said the school’s actions were severe and unfair.

“Their only reason for doing this was that [the students’] names were on fliers for a talent and dance show” held earlier this month at a hotel in Los Angeles, said the parent, who insisted his child is not in a gang.

The flier for the event read: “No Hats, No T-Shirts, No Trouble!!!” barring participants from wearing of gang colors or symbols. But fliers also included a list of participants, naming IIRK, Alemany High School and other Valley high schools, including Notre Dame and St. Genevieve--both Catholic--and Van Nuys and Chatsworth.

The fliers named, individually, about a dozen Alemany students as participants. When one of the fliers was discovered by an Alemany administrator, some of the students were suspended.

Fe DeLeon of Northridge said her son, Neil, was asked to withdraw from school or face expulsion. She denied that Neil attended the party or that he is even a member of the group. His name was used in the flier without his permission, she added.

“The school is ruining his future,” DeLeon said, noting that Neil is a National Honor Society member and on the water polo team.

Joe DeLeon, Neil’s father, said he brought documents citing his son’s involvement in honors classes, his 4.2 grade-point average and his work in a student ministry to a discipline board hearing this week.

“They said: ‘We don’t question your son’s character,’ but this morning, they recommended that he be dismissed,” DeLeon said Friday.

Another student, Jeff Suarez, 17, of Canyon Country said, “They kicked us out because they said we were potential threats to the school. But we’re not. We named ourselves because of the whole girl thing--we like girls.”

A sergeant at the Los Angeles Police Department’s Foothill Division said neither he nor the division’s gang supervisor had heard of IIRK.

But school administrators said the group’s loose organization, and the involvement of some students at a large hip-hop party in Los Angeles--where a fight apparently broke out--was enough to merit punishment.

Milbauer noted that page 18 of Alemany’s Parent/Student Handbook, under “Criteria for Dismissal,” includes “Gang/Crew involvement; e.g., anything that signifies gang affiliation, wearing of gang colors, writing of gang graffiti, association with known gang members, dance crews, party crews.”

“It’s not just that this was a dance performance group, it’s a crew. The type of dancing they’re involved in is a dance battle against another crew,” Milbauer said, though he said he had never seen that type of dancing. He also said none of the students in question were troublemakers.

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Kathleen Troisi, dean of girls at Alemany, handled the investigation of the girls suspected of involvement with the group.

“This crew has been around for one or two years,” she said, “and we were increasingly concerned . . . about the potential for violence.”

The four girls were suspended and placed on probation because they were present at the dance party, Troisi said, but were not expelled because “we had no evidence they were members of a crew . . . .”

One of the girls, a National Honor Society member who did not want to be identified, said she was punished for “being associated with a gang or crew,” but insisted that is not true.

The mother of one of the expelled boys, an 18-year-old senior, said she knew about his involvement in IIRK: “They were shocked I knew my son was a member of this group. But anybody in school knows it’s a dance group.”