Banned from grad for senior prank

[mugsy]

Ok, the teacher has to stick her nose in here...

1. When I was in high school, we did senior pranks, but, they were not destructive. My class ran a flag up the flag pole that said "Eat me Iran!" (during the hostage crisis), we walked into the teachers' lounge and sat down to read the paper (teachers thought that was hysterical), the class of 78 put card catalog cards in the catalog (cross referenced) for books written by the staff at the school (they were still finding the cards when they dumped the catalog for computers).

2. You NEVER get the full story when the media is involved, especially when schools are the subject. The media is always looking for reasons to berate schools and teachers and administrators. I'm sure that you are not getting the full story about this kid. Based on my experiences, kids who are willing to speak to adults in those tones of voice and in such language, are NOT students who have never been in trouble.

3. As Richard said...vandalism is vandalism. It's against the law and if the only thing that happens to the kid is that he misses graduation, he should consider himself lucky. I dare say the kid did not just superglue 2 trays together...probably more like multiple STACKS of trays. Now, understand, I obviously don't know that, but, that would be my guess.

4. LH...just to let you know...I swear that one of the classes you have to take now is "Lack of Common Sense 505". I know from whence I speak, as I teach for one of the stupidest individuals I have ever had the displeasure of meeting. Not only that, she is plain out mean spirited. However, I will say, the superintendent probably did not use the same language as the student, just because he didn't want to lose his job. When mothers get involved in the argument, things usually go south pretty quickly (although I have had mothers get pretty darn upset with their kid when I tell them what REALLY happened...one mother told me I could do whatever I wanted to her son because he lied to her...I giggled and thanked her, but, told her I thought my principal would object if I got physical).

5. Sparks, if you could get the full story, I would definitely be interested in reading it.

[Jessika]

We were warned in my high school that any harmful or detrimental prank risked you not walking at graduation. Of course, they still happened anyway, and if they were caught they were true to their word. Grant it, the pranks that happened at my school were a little more severe than gluing a few trays together (one was letting a BUNCH of crickets loose in the basement, another was climbing onto the roof of commons and drawing graphic body parts on the windows, which was actually pretty funny afterwards because when admin cleaned the windows, they only cleaned the spots where the paint was, so you could still see what they had drawn even after they washed it off because it was a clean spot lol). An example of a harmless prank though was setting up huge signs in the parking lot that says "USED CARS FOR SALE: ALL CARS ONLY $2003!" and putting up streamers and people actually thought it was a used car lot.... lol. That one was a prank that was considered "ok".

HJ did not get to graduate period. But it had nothing to do with a senior prank or his grades. He had previously been homeschooled until his junior year when he was enrolled in public school. His mother gave all the appropriate paperwork and they said they (his sister and him) were good to go. A month before graduation they suddenly say "oh well we need this, this, this and this" and his mother had TOLD them half the papers had been lost in a fire, and they said it was ok what she gave them already would be fine. So neither him nor his sister got to graduate. They both had to get their GEDs.

[Edwina's Secretary]

The more I think about this the more annoyed I get. A kid uses that kind of language in front of his mother and to an adult/school administrator/authority should be banned from more than just graduation.

Yes, I realize that came after the original banning. But that tells me what kind of kid this is.