Banned from grad for senior prank

[Lady's Human]

People who go into education as a career generally don't try to live their life as a high school teacher or administrator.

I beg to differ. The majority of teachers in my high school who were excellent teachers, and were exactly where they wanted to be. While I have run across teachers who had negative attitudes, their attitudes had nothing to do with having failed at being anything else. They were just miserable individuals, period.

[Lady's Human]

ES, we agree?

MEIN GOTT!

[K9soul]

I have a hard time having much sympathy for this boy too. I remember being in school and how wild and disrespectful some of the kids would get when they knew they were basically 'home free' and thought they could get away with some final act they would never have dared before. There is not a whole lot of repercussion a school can give at the end of the year a few days before a senior graduates. A kid would laugh at being suspended or put in detention. He wasn't punished by failing him and denying him a diploma, he just can't go to the ceremony. This boy must be about 18 and headed out into the adult world and he needs to take it seriously. Vandalism is vandalism, he messed with the school's property and legally if any lasting damage was done (even to just a lunch tray), they could have pressed charges. I'm willing to bet if the kid had shown remorse and apology and acted like an adult, things MIGHT have gone differently. Even if they hadn't, at least he would have owned up to responsibility and been the better person for it. I guess I just have little tolerance for things like that. And I don't think the school could really enforce something like community service or anything that isn't to do with the school itself. I think they did about the only repercussion that was available to them at that point. This wasn't a kid in grade school putting a frog in his teacher's desk, this was a young man about to graduate and enter adulthood.

Just how I see it.

[sparks19]

I guess I just come from a place where this would have NEVER been an issue.

in elementary school the school let us ORGANIZE a prank and the teachers also organized their own prank.

I just find it a little sad that THIS is what they are making a big deal of.

Kids are being beaten, bullied and tortured everyday in schools and half the time those parents don't even get a phone call.... they just turn a blind eye..... but a kid glues some stupid trays together and the sh*t hits the fan lol. Seems if they put this much energy into the REAL issues instead of this petty nonsense maybe something would change.

however, I am also of the frame of mind that the PARENTS should be more involved in a childs schooling. Seems there is a big void between school and parents and that, to me, is sad.

As for this boy entering adulthood.... what about this makes him unsuitable for the working force? I guess I have just been lucky to work in places where our bosses had great sense's of humor. my bosses were often the ones pulling pranks on US for April fools day etc etc.

[moosmom]

Somehow I doubt this is the kid's only issue

I also doubt that this is the kid's FIRST time in trouble.

[IRescue452]

Our high school's policy was that any senior prank would get you banned from the graduation ceremony. No exceptions. We were all reminded of this several times in our senior year.

[catnapper]

In my day (oh jeeze I sound old saying that!) NOBODY played pranks. Nobody. It wasn't even a thought. Now today, tv shows are deedicated to pranks. Websites are dedeicated to pranks... and some of them are utterly disgusting!

I really would like to find the whole story before giving my opinion

[sparks19]

In my day (oh jeeze I sound old saying that!) NOBODY played pranks. Nobody. It wasn't even a thought. Now today, tv shows are deedicated to pranks. Websites are dedeicated to pranks... and some of them are utterly disgusting!

I really would like to find the whole story before giving my opinion

I know.... I have been looking but it was actually a discussion on a talk radio show lol so whenever I search google I get a whole list of junk that I don't want lol. and I'm sick so I don't have the energy to do a full search..... I think I got it from you

[ratdogg]

The majority of teachers in my high school who were excellent teachers, and were exactly where they wanted to be. While I have run across teachers who had negative attitudes, their attitudes had nothing to do with having failed at being anything else. They were just miserable individuals, period.

I'm talking about high school administrators....not teachers. The teachers are there to teach the kids to try and make a difference. The admins from my experience are unhappy failures.

There are many many MANY poor principals and superintendents. Its not far fetched to believe a human in this position would lose their self control and engage a teenager in a name calling and power trip fight.

[Lady's Human]

The same holds true for administrators. In EVERY job there are people who love the job, people who hate the job (minority who make it miserable for everyone), and people who do the job because it's all they know.

The majority of administrators are most likely quite capable people who enjoy their work, but the minority who don't are the ones who make the news.

As I've told people time and again, if you don't like your job, find another one and stop making it miserable for everyone else.

[RICHARD]

Here we go!

If anything the kid should be glad he wasn't charged with misdemeanor damage to school property or some other crime....


For our Senior prank we cut down the Senior Tree....not the brightest move
but I am glad we weren't caught because back then we would have gone to jail...... No frigging Admin meetings or dragging mom and dad into it....

[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.

[buttercup132]

That's stupid for just gluing trays together . Maybe a detention or something but I think even suspention is too much for doing something little like that. I know at my school you would probly just get told off by the teacher. But the same thing happened to one of my friends last year for a prank he did.
As for the swearing, I think it's stupid to get suspended for that to at least at my school it would be because the teachers swear at us too, so honestly what do they expect when they give the kids no respect and are setting that example.

He cannot expect a teen to keep his voice under control when he as an adult cannot do the same.

Wow I wish my mother would understand this..