EDITORIAL: School’s ‘rep’ restored

There are lessons to be learned from Laguna Beach High School’s No Child Left Behind Blue Ribbon designation.

A tiny school district with only one high school “” four campuses total “” Laguna Beach Unified School District has consistently achieved big things.

The high school has one of the most accomplished performing arts departments for any school district.

That the U.S. Department of Education is recognizing the school as a model of academic achievement is especially sweet for this district.

The school has certainly come a long way from its former media status as the setting for the MTV reality show “Laguna Beach, the real Orange County,” which put the city and the high school on the national “map of the stars” and outraged many in the community with its portrayal of a “party culture” at the school.

The “reality” of such shows can be debated “” since they are, in fact, scripted to a degree “” but the damage to the school and community from this portrayal was very real.

That some of the show’s stars were displaying extremely poor judgment “” with one DUI arrest and an accusation of racial battery on the part of another “Laguna Beach” star during the MTV years “” brought the issue to a crisis.

Some were demanding the show immediately stop using the high school as a backdrop and its students as performers.

The school’s reputation suffered even more when a state-sponsored survey of students in late 2006 revealed a disturbingly high percentage of drug and alcohol use “” the highest in the state, in fact.

Again, it can be debated whether students were really more involved in drugs or alcohol or just more willing to admit they were, but parents were alarmed and discussions continued on how to quell the trend.

Laguna Beach wants to nurture and foster its children, and send them into the world with an excellent education, healthy in body and mind, ready to achieve. With the exit of MTV last year, the wave of negative publicity has subsided, and now Laguna Beach High School is getting just rewards for doing an excellent job at what it wants to be doing “” educating kids.