Politically educated

Danette Goulet and Jessica Garrison

It is lunchtime in classroom B-162 at Newport Harbor High School and

debate is raging.

Should the student political action committee formally object to the way

the school’s yearbook is produced?

Or should it place question boxes around the school and solicit opinions

from the student body?

Will students go along with the political action committee’s new academic

honesty policy?

If students hold a town hall meeting on the district’s controversial

zero-tolerance policy, will anyone listen?

Social Studies teacher Phil Di Agostino, the group’s faculty advisor,

thinks people will.

“You can’t put a price tag or any sort of adjective on how effective

these kids are being,” he said. “I’m really proud of them. I find them to

be the very model of good citizenship.”

The group was founded last year after three students came to Di Agostino

and said they wanted to find a way to create positive change on campus.

So far, they have tackled some of the major issues facing the school

board: academic honesty, drinking and driving and drinking on campus.

“I’m real pleased with the honesty policy,” said Principal Bob Boies. The

policy, drafted last year, was recently approved by the district. Soon it

will be ready for students to sign, to pledge never to cheat again.

Though the school already has policies forbidding cheating, Boies said

the group’s proactive honor pledge would prompt students to take

responsibility for their own actions and promote a more honorable feeling

on campus, and “set higher standards.”

Next, they might take on the yearbook.

Many students are concerned because of rumors that the yearbook staff

will not include “Senior Superlatives” such as “Best Smile,” “Biggest

Flirt” and other monikers by which people are remembered for decades to

come.

But this particular lunch period doesn’t offer enough time for the group

to come to any decision. After all, the lunch period is short and there

is much to be done.

And there is a bigger issue, really, that the students have to debate.

It’s the biggest event they are planning -- aside from a blood drive this

month, sending presents to poor children next month and designing a Web

site as soon as possible. They are helping to organize a town hall

meeting on the district’s zero-tolerance policy.

The district’s policy of transferring students who are caught drunk at

school events moves the problem but doesn’t address it, said senior Steve

Weller, a member of the committee who is organizing the meeting as part

of a project in his advanced-placement senior government class.

Such events are tailor-made for the committee, as opposed to the student

government, which plans dances, invites speakers, and takes policy

positions.

Unlike the student government, the political action committee is

conceived of as a “public interest group that advocates on behalf of

students and faculty” said Di Agostino.

Think of it as a student-run think tank, lobby group and voters group all

rolled into one.

“I don’t want to get corny,” said Di Agostino. “But I think it’s exactly

what the founding fathers and every politician would want to see: kids

who are taking in active role in things.”