Three cheers for folowing rules

     As much as one would like, nobody is special.
     This became apparent last Thursday when 11 Grapevine-Colleyville cheerleaders lost their final appeal to stay out of alternative school.
     The school board upheld its decision to force the girls to attend six weeks at the school after the girls’ lawyers said the punishment was too harsh for the crime.
     The crime: having drunk alcohol at an off-campus, school-sponsored event.
District officials say that such an act is a violation of state school rule, and the penalty for breaking such a law requires offenders to attend an alternative school.
     Supporters of the cheerleaders have said officials misinterpreted the policy set up by the district and that the policy conflicts with state codes.
     It is true that the parents and cheerleaders signed an agreement that set the punishement for such an act that was of a lesser degree, but that agreement did not say anything about being caught while on a school sponsored event.
     State law comes into play when students are found with alcohol while at a school event, and it calls for an automatic assignment to an alternative school.
     The fact that anyone else caught in such an act would, without a question, receive the same punishment should play a role in their decision. These students should be held to a higher standard because they represent the school and their peers.
     The students, and their parents, should have settled with the decision in a private manner instead of thrusting this unfortunate event into the public forum, where they, without a doubt, received a more stern response to their misbehavior.
     The purpose of these special schools is not to punish, but to rehabilitate the students and teach them a lesson. The kids should be allowed to "take their medicine" in private.
     Future appeals should be futile and the cheerleaders’ parents should realize they’re not the only ones affected through this affair. The school board will have to protect its decisions in past, present and future dealings with the same problem now because the      easiest thing to do is to get a lawyer and fight the rules.
     Six weeks of alternative school is not as bad as having to spend six weeks in jail.
     These girls will not be molested, assaulted or killed in school, but they will receive the proper discipline and instruction necessary to uphold the highest ethical standards reserved for the "elite students" we call cheerleaders.
     How far will the parents of these girls go? They have said they will continue to fight this decision and take the case to the court system now that the board and school administration have kept high moral standards in their district.
     This situation should be an example to all; anything can be manipulated with money.