Mailbag: Harbor should not have to accept CdM cheaters

I read of the Newport-Mesa Unified School District trustees’ decision in Thursday morning’s Daily Pilot [“11 expelled in CdM cheating episode,” Jan. 30].

Of course I support this decision. These students had zero conscience and were out to beat the system without having to study and work hard to meet those goals.

My concern is mostly with the position expressed by Newport Harbor High School student, Isabel Jorgensen: I wouldn’t want this pack of cheats transferred to my high school either. It is as if NHHS is so much the lesser school that they wouldn’t mind taking in the sanctioned cheaters.

My question to the writers of the article, and not expressed in Thursday’s Daily Pilot, is: Do other high schools in the Newport-Mesa district have autonomy enough to not be forced to accept these former CdM students? Can they reject their applications? If yes, and I do hope it is yes, I fully support NHHS in not accepting them as transfer students.

I support Trustee Katrina Foley’s intention for an ethics class as a graduation requirement, but I will also add: A sense of ethics and honor begins in the home and finishes in the school environment.

Jacquelyn Beauregard Dillman

Newport Beach

How about ethics classes?

Newport-Mesa School Board Trustee Katrina Foley has proposed a new graduation requirement for all high school students — a minimum of a four-hour class on ethics. Perhaps the parents of Corona del Mar High School students should also be required to attend such a class.

Nora Lehman

Newport Beach

Almost all colleges and universities now offer opportunities to earn credits while studying abroad. By understanding the social, economic and political realities faced by others, the students who take advantage of these programs become better able to empathize and act compassionately with people of all cultures. They develop the insight necessary to understanding our increasingly interdependent and diverse world and become our global ambassadors.

My daughter sailed on Semester at Sea in fall 2010, earning 17 college credits in 14 countries. With the world as her classroom, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu as her mentor, she learned “ubuntu” – we are all one humanity.

Wouldn’t it be great if all our children understood that everyone in the world shares similar hopes and dreams? My daughter has since lived in Thailand, Makuleke (a small village in Africa) and is off to explore South America before starting graduate school in the fall. I am so proud of her desire to really understand people of all cultures. My hope is that you will encourage your kids and their friends to explore the world and discover for themselves that no country is too foreign, no village is too remote and we are all remarkable similar.

Lisa Mathies

Newport Beach

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`The Song Remains the Same’

Since one Costa Mesa council seat must be vacated (due to term limitation), and yet another current seated member may choose to run for reelection, the result may (or not) offer a new council majority of three reining seats on the dais. Crucial, when any three people ultimately decide the fate of our entire city. If the current seated council member is reelected, Led Zeppelin’s “Song Remains the Same” may be appropriate background music, during the election-result announcement to our “City of the Arts.”

Maybe it’s time for the actual community-majority to start making some effective decisions. Possibly this November?

James H. Bridges

Costa Mesa