McKinney Cheerleader story goes national

[capitalcity]

Every high school has a click of girls exactly like this. My high school did, but the leader wasn't the principal's daughter, and they didn't proudly flaunt their exploits on the internet. Whatever, I'm sure "simulating fellatio" looks great on a college resume.

'Mean Girls'
Boozing, bikinis and bullying: how the scandalous behavior of five high-school cheerleaders rocked a bedroom community near Dallas.

WEB EXCLUSIVE
By Gretel C. Kovach and Arian Campo-Flores
Newsweek-Updated: 3:37 p.m. CT Jan 2, 2007

Jan. 2, 2007 - The pictures posted on MySpace.com looked like the latest installment of "Girls Gone Wild." In them, cheerleaders from McKinney North High School in Texas exhibited all variety of bawdy behavior. One shot showed a bikini-clad girl sharing a bottle of booze with a friend. Another featured a cheerleader and several other girls in risqué poses offering glimpses of their panties. But the most infamous photo of all was taken in a Condoms To Go store. Five smiling cheerleaders dressed in uniform posed with large candles shaped like penises. At least one of them appeared to be simulating fellatio.

"It would be an overstatement to describe any of the photographs as pornographic, but it would be an understatement to describe them as harmless high jinks," wrote Harold Jones, a lawyer hired by the school district to investigate the incident. "Quite frankly, I personally found it 'creepy'."

The photos are at the heart of a scandal that has rocked McKinney, an affluent bedroom community north of Dallas. By many accounts, the group of cheerleaders, known as the "Fab Five," were out of control—an elite social clique that flagrantly flouted school rules but faced few sanctions. In many ways, they seemed like the stereotypical "mean girls" that periodically trigger bouts of consternation among parents. But there's an added wrinkle to their tale: the Fab Five's alleged ringleader was the daughter of McKinney North's principal, Linda Theret. Amid charges that Theret gave the girls preferential treatment, the school district launched a $40,000 investigation conducted by Jones in the fall. His 70-page report, which harshly criticized Theret and assistant principal Richard Brunner, helped prompt Theret's resignation on Dec. 21 (Brunner remains on paid leave as he fights to retain his job). But Jones's report takes plenty of others to task as well, from parents to police. "Kids will be kids, but adults have to be adults," he wrote. "Sadly, in this saga, I was struck by the reticence of many adults to accept the role of 'being the grown-up'."

Ward quit and took her story to the media. The cheerleaders had reportedly been a menace long before the condom-store episode, according to the report. When one teacher told a squad member to quit chatting on her cell phone in class, the girl replied, "Shut up, I'm talking to my Mom." On a separate occasion, she offered this response to the teacher's reprimand: "Pull your panties out of a wad." "Gang members were nothing compared to these girls," the teacher told Jones. "They believe they cannot be touched."

The girls were apparently just as ornery in their cheerleading activities, leading five coaches to quit in the last three years. The principal's daughter flipped off one former coach. But instead of kicking the daughter off the squad, school administrators allowed her to quit so she could try out the following year. After the incident, the coach told Jones, Theret "tried to ruin my life over this. I was called a liar, crazy, on meds." (Theret's attorney denies this.)

The problems culminated this fall under the most recent cheerleading coach, Michaela Ward. Though her relationship with the girls started off amicably, things quickly soured. Among the pranks they allegedly pulled on Ward: giving her what the report described as a "chocolate tampon" and sending racy text messages from her cell phone to her husband and another coach. When the condom-store photos hit the Internet, they triggered a firestorm. Now taking a hard line, Theret, according to her attorney, recommended kicking the five girls off the squad. But a committee of administrators from the school and the district recommended 15-day suspensions for the girls in the drinking photo and 30-day suspensions for those in the condom-store snapshot.

After parents protested that the latter picture shouldn't be treated more harshly than the former, the superintendent of schools agreed and reduced the penalty for the condom-store photo to 15 days. In the aftermath, Ward warned the cheerleaders that she would kick them off if there were any more incidents. "Good luck with that," one is said to have replied. Not surprisingly, there were more incidents, including the night of the homecoming dance, when some of the cheerleaders arrived in a limo packed with students who had apparently been boozing.

All of this might have remained below the radar had it not been for Ward. In October, she abruptly resigned and recounted her experiences with the girls to the media. In the resulting uproar, the school district called in Jones, whose report makes clear that he was as dismayed by the behavior of the adults as he was by that of the Fab Five. He criticized Ward for abetting the cheerleaders' misconduct. He lambasted school administrators for giving the girls far too many second chances. And he rebuked Theret for failing to balance her dueling obligations as a mother and a principal.

Principal Theret resigned on Dec. 21. The parties involved, of course, dispute these conclusions. Theret's attorney, Bob Hinton, says that she was doing her best to control her recalcitrant daughter and that as principal, she propelled the school to the "pinnacle" of academic excellence—a point that Jones agrees with. One of the Fab Five claims that their depiction as "Girls Gone Wild" is unjustified. Critics "made us out to be people we're not," she says. Ward didn't return calls for comment.

At McKinney North, the tumult is finally beginning to subside. None of the Fab Five remain on the team, according to one of the ousted cheerleaders. Theret recently reached a settlement with the school board, agreeing to resign in exchange for a payment of around $75,000 and a letter of recommendation. In her wake, an interim principal has been named. "We want to move on," says a McKinney schools spokesman. Perhaps now that the reign of the Fab Five is over, they can.

NEWSWEEK

[Flacolaco]

stupid little narcissistic bitches. ?

[mary]

Send their asses to alternative school and leave them there.

If the parents don't like it, tell them to go to hell.

Thearet should refund her salary back to the taxpayers.

Kids are aweful and teachers don't have alot of recourse these days.

[capitalcity]

Paging raef....

[Drbio]

Originally Posted by capitalcity

Paging raef....

I guarantee you she will have an interesting opinion on this and one that I very much look forward to reading.

Is this truly our future? Ugh.

[FINtastic]

Weird, my sister had this group of bitchy girls at her junior high that called themselves "The Fab Five". They didn't go as far with the sexual innuendo as this McKinney group, but they had the same attitude and were roundly hated by pretty much everyone. Heck, when you throw in the Michigan Fab Five with C-Webb, has there ever been a likeable group of girls that called themselves the Fab Five?

[SaltwaterChaffy]

This thread is worthless without pics.

[capitalcity]

Originally Posted by SaltwaterChaffy

This thread is worthless without pics.

Word.

Somebody help Chaff out, he's still bumming from Monday.

[Dirkgreatness]

I agree, worthless without pics.

offtopic: cap your sig came from this video right?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-5grqhj1b8

lol, hilarious

[Nemesis]

lol

[capitalcity]

Dick in a Box - is not really off topic for this thread.

[MavKikiNYC]

Is McKinney affluent now?

[FreakNasty]

Originally Posted by SaltwaterChaffy

This thread is worthless without pics.

Im sure they were ordered to delete their myspaces.

Pictures of underage drinking is everywhere on myspace though..... I wonder how other high schools will approach this.

[DavidDaMonkey]

In all honesty, nothing about this story shocked me except that people are making such a big deal. Im not saying I support these girls, but I dont think they are exceptions.

[Drbio]

[MavsX]

yeah dude, i want to see some pics...come on baby

[MavsX]

just tried google-ing the last name "Theret", no dice. all i got was photos of the mom...

dammit!

[Dirkgreatness]

eh, sorry guys couldn't find the actual pictures BUT i managed to find "the fab five" pics from a website... I THINK. Well you can see some of their pics if ya'll want here and here.

[Drbio]

Originally Posted by Dirkgreatness

eh, sorry guys couldn't find the actual pictures BUT i managed to find "the fab five" pics from a website... I THINK. Well you can see some of their pics if ya'll want here and here.

Damn!!!!

This one is nice.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/36111795@N00/344632814/

Here they are....

[fluid.forty.one]

Umm unless I missed something, I dont understand how the school can suspend them for 30 days for having a picture taken in a condom store.

[Dirkgreatness]

Originally Posted by fluid.forty.one

Umm unless I missed something, I dont understand how the school can suspend them for 30 days for having a picture taken in a condom store.

ehh, Just last year they were telling us at school that people might get suspended for having a myspace.... retarded!

[chumdawg]

Not that hot. Tremendous fat potential, and on one of them at least, some dangerously male facial features.

[Ninkobei]

hey, I went to highschool in mckinney. how come none of this happened when I was around. or maybe it did and I just wasnt invited. sigh.

and p.s. alternative school is a lot more cushy than one might think

[ocelot_ark]

Originally Posted by Drbio

Damn!!!!

This one is nice.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/36111795@N00/344632814/

Here they are....

Dirty. Old. Man.

[Drbio]

Originally Posted by ocelot_ark

Dirty. Old. Man.

bullpoo. I may be older than you but I ain't dead.

Tell me this isn't nice....

http://www.flickr.com/photos/36111795@N00/344632814/

[chumdawg]

The ringleader is quite probably a man. Figures Doc would get a hardon.

[Drbio]

Figures that cumdawg would try to call a woman a man. I guess that happens when you have no freaking clue what a woman looks like.

Which one is a man again chumfaig?

[chumdawg]

The one in the middle, dirty old man.

Duh. If you weren't so happy to find childporn, you would have figured this out for yourself.

[Drbio]

You have completed your trip to f*cking moron chum. Congrats.

[chumdawg]

I paid you your two dollars. You can (and should) shut up now.

[Drbio]

You've been warned to take it to pm's if you wish to continue to be a jerk. It won't end well for you if you keep it up.

[SaltwaterChaffy]

Why does it only not end well for him? Why not for you as well?

[Drbio]

Because I am not responding after the official request to take it to pm. Not that it was any of your business.

[SaltwaterChaffy]

This feud is all over the board, so I feel I can respond to it.

[Drbio]

You just go ahead and feel free to respond to anything you wish....respond to your hearts desire.

[chumdawg]

Two weeks ago I invited you to take it to PM's. You wanted no part of it. It's just as well, because I don't want to talk to you any more than you want to talk to me.

I tell you what, take that tagline off your avatar, stop posting Photoshops with my name on them, and you won't ever hear another word from me again. Deal?

[Drbio]

Never start what you don't want finished and stop acting like you were benevolent. You started all the crap with the New Orleans schtick when everyone agreed with me. Take all further communication to pm.