School: No punishment for swim club that hired stripper

DES MOINES, Iowa — Members of a high school synchronized swimming club who hired a male stripper to perform at their annual banquet won't face punishment because they broke no rules, the school's principal said Wednesday.

A club member's adult sister ordered the stripper at the request of freshmen who organized the event at the Des Moines Social Club, Roosevelt High School Principal Kevin Biggs said. Biggs said no club funds were spent on the purchase.

“They were doing it as a joke and a prank. They didn’t realize, as many 14- and 15-year-old girls and boys don’t, the ramifications of their decision,” Biggs said. “They thought it would be funny, and it wasn’t until things got going that everyone realized it wasn’t good.”

The stripper performed for about 15 minutes before a Des Moines Social Club employee stopped him and canceled the social, Biggs said. The stripper was never fully unclothed, and there was no sexual contact with any of the girls, officials said.

No school employees attended, including the club's volunteer adviser, who is a teacher.

Biggs said officials don't believe anything illegal occurred, and the students' actions don't appear to have violated the district's code of conduct.

That code specifies that students in extracurricular and co-curricular activities represent themselves and their school whether they are away from or at school. Violations would include the presence of illegal activity at a location where those students are present.

“It’s not illegal. It’s immoral, in our eyes," Biggs said. "But immoral doesn’t necessarily mean that students are going to face consequences such as suspensions, or something along those lines."

The situation is complicated by the fact that the 90-year-old swimming club operates outside of the school activities department, Biggs said, with the students raising all their own money.

In light of Friday's incident, the school district plans to place the club and all its finances under the control of Roosevelt's activities department, pay the supervisor with school funds and, in collaboration with the student club leaders, draft new guidelines for the club, Biggs said.

“This is a black eye on the club, but they raise a tremendous amount of money for charity every year,” Biggs said. “They do a lot of great community service work and that’s what our seniors are most proud of, and yet this has taken over the news on the eve of their pageant.”

The banquet is an annual event before the pageant of the Roosevelt Sharks synchronized swimming club.