Rio Americano High School is receiving national attention but not the kind schools brag about.

Fox News television host Bill O'Reilly's show recently blasted Rio's song team for provocative dance moves during a performance at a back-to-school rally.

His "Culture Warriors" segment featured Fox commentators Margaret Hoover and Gretchen Carlson dissecting the dance routine while a recording of the most titillating moves played over and over on a loop. "They were absolutely overtly sexual," Hoover said. "What do you call spreading your legs and shaking your booty? They look like they're in an MTV music video, not at a high school performance."

Then Carlson chimed in: "Can you imagine the young teenage boys sitting in that school audience? How in the heck were they concentrating on algebra after that?"

Not very well, apparently. Senior John Butterfield, 17, had a front-row seat at the performance. He left the rally so shaken that he wrote an opinion piece for the Mirada, the school's student newspaper.

"Moves like we saw at the Aloha Rally are not allowed at normal school dances or even in most socially acceptable settings," Butterfield wrote. "This is a high school rally, not the latest music video, and when the song team spends most of the routine bent over, while it may (elicit) catcalls from the audience, it is simply not appropriate."

About 50 parents attended
the Aug. 24 rally, and none of
them complained, Principal Brian Ginter said.

The song team's routine didn't strike him as anything particularly noteworthy. By high-school dance team standards, the girls were modestly dressed in loose-fitting light pink blouses, full-length pants and sneakers.

"What our girls did at their dance routine wasn't really anything different than I've seen in dance routines across the country," Ginter said.

Butterfield's 450-word piece Sept. 25 on Page 6 of the school newspaper ignited media interest. First News10 did a segment, and then O'Reilly. "I enjoy the fact that people are talking about it," Butterfield said Tuesday.

The song team, on the other hand, is not so happy people are talking about it. The coach and student dancers declined to be interviewed for this story. Ginter said they feel the television coverage was unfair to them.

The girls face no discipline because they didn't break any rules, he said. And even before their routine was skewered by Fox pundits, Rio's song team had revised its dance in response to Butterfield's criticism.

"They went through the video and the article and looked at the things he felt were inappropriate. They looked at the dance they did and said maybe this is something that could be considered overboard," Ginter said. "There were adjustments made."