EDITORIAL

The threat is ever-present on school campuses: “This will go on your

permanent record.” You hear it in elementary school, are saddled with it

in middle school, and then it becomes the ultimate menace in high school,

when there’s indication that a mark on your permanent record will be

enough to keep you out of college.

At some point, of course, when you reach adulthood and school is a bit

behind you, you’re able to reflect on the fear that threat created and

realize that, really, there never was a permanent record to cause such

years-long concern.

Or is there?

It turns out that longtime Newport Harbor High School cheerleading

coach Lisa Callahan has been sacked, and all thanks to her permanent

record, it seems. Callahan, by telling school administrators in November

that she had seen irregularities in the judging of cheerleader tryouts,

sparked the controversy about who should be on the squad and whether

Newport Harbor handled the situation well by first allowing everyone who

tried out to join the team and then reversing that decision.

The emotion from that roller coaster, by most accounts, was settling

down when news hit late last month of Callahan’s dismissal. It is rightly

welling back up for two reasons: the timing of and reason for her

removal.

In the first place, even if there is no direct correlation between

Callahan’s firing and the controversy, it clearly is going to arouse

suspicion that she was forced out because of her role in this sorry

affair. Was that not obvious? Add to that the cause for her dismissal --

school officials say her hiring process and background screening were not

done properly 13 years ago -- was essentially an ancient technicality,

and there appears the same fumbling of events that has let this

controversy turn into the “cheerleader crisis.”

And that leads to the inevitable question: Why?

Why has a routine matter, albeit important to some, spiraled out of

control? Why was a firm decision not made at the very beginning of this

mess that the school and district could then follow?

The answer rests somewhere in district headquarters or the Newport

Harbor administration. Someone really should explain it, and do so

quickly, before the district and the school’s permanent records gets a

mark for a very minor incident.