Denial of Exemption for Cheerleader Who Got ‘F’

Re “One ‘F’ Leaves Girl Nothing to Cheer About” (April 4):

I have been the pepster adviser and a teacher at Valencia High School for six years. At Valencia, the 2.0 GPA is a minimum standard, and any adviser or coach may elect to impose additional conditions as long as this fact is communicated to parents and students.

In our pepster program, the students must maintain a semester GPA of 2.5 and no “F”s or “U”s to remain eligible or to try out for the squad. These higher standards are set because the pepster girls are in a position of leadership and responsibility. In addition, they may have to occasionally miss an academic class for their pepster activities and need to be above-average students to compensate for these absences. Melissa Fontes and her family are losing sight of two important points: 1) She must accept responsibility for her actions. She received the “F,” not the pepster program. 2) The first priority of any student should be his or her academic grade. As a parent, I would be more concerned about my daughter’s “F”than the fact that she was not eligible for the cheerleading squad.

JONNA HAYDEN ROBINSON

Placentia