Senior pranks aren’t what they used to be
by Laurel Walker
jsonline.com
June 9, 2009
Oh, for the good ol’ days – when senior pranks were really clever and memorable, and when school administrators had the audacity to admire the good ones.
For all the hubbub those so-called pranks at Arrowhead and Brookfield East high schools produced last weekend – with different outcomes – I couldn’t help but long for a jaw-dropping, “how’d they ever do that?” caper. Harmlessness, above all else, must be a condition of the truly good prank, as should anonymity.
One of the best I remember was in June 1997 at Brookfield East High School, when someone managed to hoist a Pontiac 6000 overhead and parked it atop the school’s steel entry canopy. Among the worst, also at Brookfield East in 2004, students without an ounce of creativity thought an all-out food fight and dumping human feces on the floor made for a fine senior moment.
By comparison, the stunts that got the Waukesha County students in trouble last week were harmless enough, tame if not lame.
If you missed it, the stink was whether students who participated in senior pranks should be allowed to attend graduation.
At Arrowhead – Zero Tolerance Zone, I’ll call it – kids used washable colored chalk to write “Class of 2009” and to draw a star, rainbow and Tweety bird on the North building. Not exactly the gruff stuff of hard-edged graffiti, is it?
A sheriff’s detective moonlighting as school security caught a couple of them in the act and told them if they washed it off, they wouldn’t get a trespassing ticket.
They called back their co-conspirators and the kids scrubbed.
No harm, or foul, right?
According to school and sheriff’s officials, they did a lousy clean-up. A school-based cop saw tell-tale signs on the building the next day and asked questions. Administrators investigated. Nine students were nailed with suspensions and banned from a school party and the graduation ceremony.
Arrowhead’s unbending rule – participate in a prank and you’ll miss graduation, period – seems unnecessarily hard, especially when a feeble prank like this one did no real harm and, some argue, was an expression of class spirit.
Still, the students knew in advance the consequence of their choice and should have taken it like merry pranksters.
In unmistakably plain language, the district’s “Graduation Ceremony Commitment Agreement” signed by each participating student and parent reads, “Any senior pranks or student involvement in alcohol or drugs on school grounds or at school sponsored events will result in no participation in the graduation ceremony or attendance at the senior party.”
Case closed. If these kids don’t understand what an agreement is, then maybe they shouldn’t be graduating to begin with.
At Brookfield East – I’ll call it Land of Second Chances – a slightly more unusual prank occurred when six students, including the valedictorian, climbed up on a roof and erected a swing set that they later said they intended to give to charity. They were caught in the act, too.
Police issued prowling citations, which carry a $298 fine. School officials suspended them, which included a ban from graduation ceremonies. The kids took to the airwaves in a media blitz, and Superintendent Matt Gibson said the public response was overwhelmingly to allow the kids’ participation. He determined that graduation was becoming too much about six boys and less about the other 340 graduates.
No harm, no foul, so why not? The fines and no speech from the valedictorian were penalty enough.
“Had the swing set shown up on the front lawn of the school, no one would have been suspended” in the first place, East Principal Brett Bowers said. Furthermore, “There are very few things that you should be that absolute on.”
Oconomowoc Superintendent Pat Neudecker says a vandal who spray painted a new school art center in mid-May outraged other students and hardly could be called a senior prank. But, with graduation on Saturday, she’s been thinking about how to channel seniors’ creative energy.
Maybe next year the district should have a contest, with seniors submitting creative, amazing “prank” ideas that a panel could then secretly, officially sanction.
I’m guessing that will either produce some terrific senior pranks, just like in the good old days. Or it’ll kill the student craving altogether.
photo: farm4.static.flickr.com