Free speech hot after fireworks shot down

Jeff Benson

Student leaders at Newport Harbor High School are upset over what

they call a violation of their right to free speech after a debate

about using fireworks Saturday to celebrate homecoming.

Students were told last week that they couldn’t present a report

at a school board meeting detailing why they should be allowed to set

off the fireworks. The letter, signed by 32 members of the school

Associated Student Body, said the school had already received city

permits and an OK from the Fire Department.

“I told [Supt. of Secondary Education Jaime Castellanos] I planned

to give a student report that the [Associated Student Body] wrote,”

said student board member Elle Erpenbeck, 17. “He said he needed more

time to look over it and that it wouldn’t be an appropriate time to

read my letter ... I was kind of shocked. I thought my purpose as a

student board member was to report on the situation of the students.

If we weren’t giving a happy report, he didn’t want to hear it, I

thought.”

District officials said the incident was merely a

misunderstanding.

The board expected a student report on the proposed fireworks show

and other things going on at the school, Supt. Robert Barbot said,

but not a lengthy presentation that wasn’t included on the agenda.

Administrators canceled Newport Harbor’s 20-year tradition of

having fireworks at homecoming after a school board decision in May

to ban the sale and possession of fireworks on all district campuses.

Students said they were not notified that the district had changed

its policy on fireworks. “For whatever reason, this did not filter

down,” Barbot said. “I want to apologize to the kids for that,

because they didn’t get the information.”

Erpenbeck was stunned when Castellanos would not let her speak to

the school board about the students’ concerns. She felt she had

followed protocol by faxing a copy of the report in advance and

approaching Castellanos before the meeting to inform him of her

intentions, as district secretaries told her to do.

Castellanos could not be reached for comment.

Jessie Womble, 18, co-president of the Student Political Action

Committee at Newport Harbor, called Castellanos’ refusal to listen to

the students “a definite First Amendment-rights issue” because she

felt the students followed the necessary steps to get their item

heard at the meeting.

“It should be some protocol as to what a student presents compared

with what an adult presents,” Womble said. “This shouldn’t have

happened.”

The misunderstanding comes down to semantics, Barbot said. Anyone

wishing to make a presentation to the board, as Erpenbeck requested,

must request time two weeks in advance and be put on the agenda. As a

student board member, Erpenbeck would have been allowed to make a

report to the board.

Barbot gave the students his blessing Wednesday to use nonaerial

fireworks at homecoming after he met informally with Principal

Michael Vossen and several student leaders.

“[Newport Harbor is] the last group to have a homecoming, so I

offered a resolution -- light fireworks or sparklers,” Barbot said. I

said, ‘Please don’t launch any right now,’ and they seemed

understanding of that. All I asked them was that they be legal

fireworks. I want it to be legal -- not launched into the stands or

the air so that it would be a problem.

“I said the students should meet with us over the next few months

and recommend some things to the board. I tried to be fair, and they

seemed to be OK with it.”

Vossen decided not to proceed with the fireworks because students

didn’t have time to reorganize a show for Saturday.

* JEFF BENSON covers education and may be reached at (714)

966-4617.