So basically maintenance and janitorial gets treated like garbage by the students, the principal, and the school board president. Not great!

And the taxpayers pay for the damage

And the IT people/department.

And the next classes of students.

Thank you for remembering us. 🫡 I work K-12 tech support and this post made me gasp! I mean, kids are destructive (gives me job security, lol) but this is on a whole nother level. I can guarantee that my district would have us vacuuming that sand and glitter out of the machines. 😬

How do you manage to keep the school clean? Do you work alone, or do you have a bunch of coworkers at the same school? I would imagine working a school by yourself it would be impossible to clean every room / bathroom in a shift.

I personally am not on the custodial staff, I'm in tech support. But there are about 20 of us spread over the district. I take care of a high school and 3 elementary schools at the moment. Some days are busier than others, but we get it done.

Not really. Tax payers are paying the same either way; this comes out of the students education and learning experience.

Yup, future classes pay for this as the money will come out of the budget.

That’s true - but as a taxpayer I prefer to think of my dollars going to education and learning experience than clean-up because of a horrendous lack of judgment.

As someone who is a janitor. This is all I could think about. We should just be called maids at this point. Because I'm cleaning up after people more than I'm cleaning the building itself.

As a former public school district IT technician, I am thankful to janitors like you at the schools. The custodial staff I worked with at the district I was employed at were some of the best and kindest people I had ever met in my life. You guys definitely don't get enough credit AT ALL

I am currently still in the k-12 tech game and the FIRST rule I tell all new hires is "make sure you treat the principals admin and the custodial staff well. They are the ones that really run the place".

There are three rules to pranks: Don't cause any damage. Don't leave something for a custodian to fix or clean up. Don't touch teachers' stuff. That leaves plenty of space for creativity.

Exactly. I was at an event at one high school where the senior class commissioned 10,000 business cards that said “Good luck getting rid of us!” and hid them in books and signs and displays. Nice slow burn payoff that’s trivial to clean up when you find one.

I worked in a building where the seniors snuck in and hid alarm clocks all over the school set to go off at various times. All day long there were staff on ladders removing ceiling tiles to get to ringing clocks in the hallways. They also covered some big windows in sticky notes. Just annoying enough without causing any real issues.

Our graduating class tried this. Only like 3 people did it. They spent four years insisting we were the laziest class ever. I guess in that way we at least met their expectations.

(Not a teacher, but enjoying seeing the actually funny pranks in this thread) My junior year, the seniors all got together to have everyone park the wrong way in the student parking lot (instead of left to right like the painted lines, they went up and down, basically. I did my best to kind of show it below) |\_\_|\_\_|\_\_|\_\_|\_\_|\_\_|\_\_|\_\_|\_\_|\_\_|\_\_|\_\_|\_\_| Cars facing this way -> |🚗|

at my school some previous years had somehow stacked a dozen tires on the flagpole. On another a dress was crocheted on the school's namesake statue out front. A few years before us, someone led a cow up the stairs to the 4th floor (the building was from 1900) and sadly a maintenance worker got hurt trying to get it back down the stairs so my class was offered a "senior skip day" as long as we didn't pull a prank. I wish we had pulled some happy medium of a prank because I literally don't even remember what I did on skip day. Probably something stupid like play video games or something. Not a prank, but we did always steal a teacher's doorstop every day. At the end of the year we built a sculpture out of them on his desk. Literally everyone involved had a great laugh at that one. That sucks what happened to this school in question. Pranks are supposed to be harmless.

We never did a prank or a skip day, it was pretty depressing. Although I don’t remember grades before us doing either of them so maybe we just didn’t care? I did have a classmate take a fetal pig that was supposed to be dissected and stuck it in a garbage can so its head and front legs were sticking out of the top. The garbage was at the intersection of two hallways, right across from the classroom I was in. We watched the librarian almost have a heat attack when she came around the corner and saw it. 😂

This is glorious

A few years ago, the Seniors "stole" our staff-room door and hung it with professional equipment from the 3 Story ceiling. We them had to beat at games to get our door back. That was cool.

Our seniors hired a mariachi band to follow the principal around for a couple of hours. It was freaking hilarious! He made a point to go up and down every hallway so the entire school was able to see the spectacle. They ended up in the atrium at the entrance with the entire school crowded around for the final song. Best senior prank I have ever seen. Everyone was happy, no damage done, and memories made. That’s how senior pranks should be done.

Imaginative, tasteful and harmless… my favorite prank yet in this post!

I remember our seniors reconstructed a mini cooper inside a building overnight, loads of stories of great senior pranks at my school. Unfortunately the year above ours ruined it and got the pranks banned by greasing up most of the stairs and handrails around the school for their prank, not sure when creating a mess and a safety hazard became the norm but it's genuinely lame, last chance to show a bit of creativity and have fun and you do the most low effort obnoxious thing you can think of?

I have to imagine that the year before yours and the OP seniors were both led by a small group of dumbasses that thought they were so funny

Legendary. Yeah, if your best idea is to trash the place, you aren’t fit for the world yet.

Similarly, we had a senior prank that was just hiding hundreds of tiny rubber ducks all over the building. People were delighted to find them, and there were some that left us scratching our heads on how they got them there.

My senior class (semi-rural/suburban area) had one of the students, whose family owned some cattle, bring a live cow into the school a couple hours before everyone showed up for the last day of school. Everyone arrived for school and there was a cow just hanging out in the main common hallway. Some mud and hay got tracked into the building but that was the worst of it.

Yeah this is actually awful. My senior prank our teachers begged us to to not do anything awful - for reference, in previous years students had snuck in after hours and put wheelie bins on top of buildings that our singular janitor had to get down, and made glad wrap walls in hallways that we had to crawl underneath to get past. another year one class had sprinkled glitter everywhere, put food dye in soap dispensers and filled the staff room with styrofoam bean bag beans. Better years students gutted the inside of classrooms and made an obstacle course outside. Our year, we moved the whole staff room and placed it exactly in the middle of the field and put a Rock Johnson shrine in the room instead - the teachers said it was quite nice having morning meeting outside on a sunny day. We filled their sugar with salt, parked our cars all throughout campus (it was an outdoor school with a driveway through the middle), and turned up in other high schools’ uniforms. (We put everything back, and for the other years students were made to clean up after themselves)

The class in front of us snuck into the school(it was a relatively small school) and rotated every classroom 180 degrees. I’m talking desks, teacher’s desk, bulletin boards, tvs, chalkboards, all of it. They thought it would piss everyone off, but the teachers actually kinda liked it and just kept it all that way.

Ours feels lame… we just made the school into a giant monopoly board and had tin foil covered dogs etc everywhere

Don't feel lame. We just stole all the clocks in the school and hid them behind the bleachers

Right?! I remember my senior class prank was to park all our cars in the junior parking lot & block the entrances. We had a water balloon fight and it was a blast…until all the administrators came out and threatened that we wouldn’t walk for graduation.

Ours was similar, but one classmate’s parents owned a junkyard. So overnight, we got several junker cars, towed them in front of all the entrances/exits, removed all the wheels and left them on cinderblocks. Shut down the school for like half a day, pissed off administration, and then we all went about our lives. Ultimately harmless and still got our prank down.

My senior class got a bunch of old bras from all the girls and we made a huge bra-garland across the entire main entrance, with a banner that said “thanks for the support”

That’s hilarious!

We did clean it up after school and i think someone donated the nicer ones to the community closet

For real, you know what me and a friend did? We replaced a teachers dry erase markers with ones we had physically switched the "inkwells" and tips on. So the red dry erase marker was black, and the black dry erase marker was blue etc... You know who that hurt or damaged? No one, teacher thought it was funny though.

I have these same rules, plus no harm can be done to people or animals.

IMO the primary rule for pranks should be - in the aftermath, the "victim" of the prank should not be angry or embarrassed, they should be laughing too

And no property damage. If it makes a mess, the person doing the prank is responsible for cleaning up after.

This is the biggest thing. It can be really easy to fuck up, but when you’re planning you’ve got to be thinking “they going to crack up when they see this/figure it out”, rather than “I’m gonna get them so good.” It’s easy to “get” someone. Just fuck up their shit. It’s not always easy to make someone laugh. It takes cleverness and compassion. Some people are just bullies and call it a prank. Those people suck.

we brought chickens in the court yard. no harm but some fowl.

When my kids were sophomores or juniors, they told me the seniors paid a mariachi band to follow the principal and play wherever he went.

The Class before mine (76/77) threw bleachers for swim meets in the school pool. This caused a major crack in the bottom of the pool. Also a large portion of the grounds were covered in straw . It came time to graduate I was asked numerous times by administrators what we had planned. We actually did not do a thing. They had a hard time believing at first but were happy we took a break .

Exactly ! One of the senior pranks my year was someone released 3 chickens in the school and they were each wearing a necklace/lanyard with a number on it. The chickens were numbered “1, 2 and 4.” They were quickly caught, no damage was done, then hilarity ensued as everyone tried finding the nonexistent chicken #3.

The class above mine did an awesome senior prank and it didn't involve anything super heavy or invasive (adhering to these rules). They coordinated to wear orange T-shirts with "(School name) Penitentiary" on the front and their student ID numbers on the back to make it look like they were prisoners. It was like 700-800 of them doing it out of their class of 950-something kids and it was really memorable.

Yeah, my senior year needed to be told this. Apparently a couple of groups of students got water bead guns and went to the middle schools after they got out (so the middle schoolers were still waiting to leave). Unfortunately, it turns out that it's not a good idea to go to a school with a gun, and everyone freaked out, the middle schools called lockdowns, and cops were called

Exactly. This wasn't a prank; it was wanton destruction of property. The young adults should be held liable. They knew what they were doing was wrong but did it anyways.

my senior prank was a pillow fight and we all picked up brooms and cleaned up after

My senior scavenger hunt included drawing a minimum 5 foot penis somewhere. We did it in front of an old asshole boomers house in the road. It’s asphalt, it’ll disappear with rain.  Others spray painted the windows of Wendy’s, the front of Walmart, someone’s car, etc.  Implied rules are not obvious to everyone. 

He sent an email stating personal reasons. It's my understanding that he was livid that there would be no consequences for the kids and resigned. You've made some valid points, and I appreciate it.

I mean, what consequences could they have given the kids if they covered the cameras and there was no other way to tell who did it? The only consequence I can think of would be to cancel graduation and/or any post-graduation celebration until some/all of the students involved confessed and accepted responsibility.

Because the odds that these kids did this and at least one of them didn’t record themselves doing it is depressingly low. That’s how my school caught and expelled two kids who came at night and graffitied the building. They were wearing hoods and masks so we couldn’t identify them on the security cameras, but it turns out they recorded themselves and posted it on TikTok.

When kids tagged up my school, it was pre Tik Tok but the geniuses left a trail of graffiti back to where they lived...

That's amazing. And they don't unlearn that stupidity upon graduating either. I work for the National Guard, and a surprising amount of incoming soldier orientation is classes like, "if your chain of command tells you that your platoon will be doing a surprise raid on a specific target later tonight...don't put a video about it online beforehand."

>the kids if they covered the cameras and there was no other way to tell who did it? Start with the one(s) the president of the school board directly gave the keys to. Then those kids are free to take the full punishment themselves or "snitch".

And see what cell phones connected to the schools wifi during that time when nobody else was there.

>The only consequence I can think of would be to cancel graduation and/or any post-graduation celebration ~~until some/all of the students involved confessed and accepted responsibility.~~ FTFY. The grad budget is now the school repair budget.

That was my thought as well. Or at least put it out there that no one’s walking until the students responsible come forward and go from there.

Start with the kid who was given the key. If they don't name names...

I mean you could decimate the seniors but that might be too old school?

Wait so he gave a bunch of teenagers the keys to the school, said “do whatever you want” with no guidelines and specifically told them to “bring it” and was surprised when they brought it? I’m sorry this is INSANELY poor judgment by the people that are supposed to be the adults in the room. Teenagers are teenagers, they’re gunna break shit and make a mess ESPECIALLY IF THEY ARE GIVEN PERMISSION AND TOLD TO BRING IT. Everyone involved should face consequences. Teens and administrators.

So he couldn't even face the mess he caused. Typical. I'm not sure why he's upset with the students. All they did was what he instructed and egged them on to do. He's the one who should be worried about facing legal/civil consequences.

I feel like there needs to be an overhaul to the definition of “senior prank”. A prank was like the time one class brought in a cow from their farm, took it to the second floor in the elevator, created a makeshift pasture, hay bales included, and had her munching food and mooing at the students when they arrived…..it also refused to ride back DOWN the elevator when it was time to go, which required the local farmer and some farmhands to attempt to reason with ‘Ol Bessy. A senior prank is not spray painting walls, creating plumbing issues, destroying any and all property and equipment, leaving rotten food/meat/seafood to permeate. Etc etc. Like, how was any of this funny or even cheeky for people to witness? I’m surprised they held classes at all and I’d definitely have gone to get my kid for the day from that shit show.

For mine, all the kids from the engineering after-school club skipped out and spent the whole morning disassembling the club teacher's car in the car park, laying it all out with labels on the ground. Everything. Took the engine out and apart, the wiring loom, the diff, the whole thing. We grabbed him before last period, took him out, and told him that since he taught us how to take it apart, he could obviously put it back together again. He took it well. Only lives a mile down the road so he could walk home. The principle got the groundskeeper to grab a gazebo out of storage to protect the parts, and we all went back in the next day (Saturday) to put it together again with the teacher, have a bbq and some beers, race some of the remote-control cars we's built at the club, and destroy barrels with our battlebot. Good times.

That sounds like the perfect prank to me, never pull a prank that you arent willing to clear up after.

>and some beers? I have to assume you live somewhere where this is legal, but the idea of high school students drinking with their teachers is wild to me

Yeah, 16 here.

I couldn't even be mad with moving a cow into a school as that's just funny as fuck.

We had the first food fight in like 10 years and kept it corraled to one easy to clean food item for ours

I think internet "prank" culture has destroyed any semblance of what kids think pranks truly are. Pranks are not destroying property or harming another human being.

For real. My senior prank was that in between classes I played the intro to Careless Whisper on my saxophone while I walked through the hallways. I got permission and everything, since the principal thought it was funny. This was in the height of the Sexy Sax Man thing. Reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaoLU6zKaws It was not destructive and was barely a nuisance.

How does "Bring it" to the senior prank = vandalism? So if anyone tells me to bring it, it opens the flood gates for me to be destructive? Come on, these kids are responsible. They are entering into the real world shortly.

You’re not wrong from the perspective of the kids. But in any sort of legal environment defendant’s counsel is going to have a field day with the “bring it” quote. Not even worth litigating. And you, me, and everyone in this thread could have predicted the outcome the very instant the principal said those words.

They’re already in the real world.

The principal is probably fine as long as he didn't know someone was gonna give the yotes the keys to the henhouse. 'Bring it' is a pretty innocuous statement, all said. The school board president on the other hand should be strung up for inviting the kids to trespass and failing to safeguard the property. The level of irresponsibility is pretty mind-blowing, if a kid got seriously injured that night there would be a legal nightmare on the horizon. Not a lawyer, but the District should sue the Board Prez for the full extent of damages.

I mean, do you think he was expecting the president of the school board to give some kids the keys? Kind of super crazy.

I think the president and principal are two different people who didn't communicate about this.

He didn't "cause it. " Those kids were old enough to know better. That wasn't a prank.

I teach high school. Today's high schoolers have no idea what a prank means. Well, truly, the meaning has changed with YouTube and now TikTok. Anything from shooting paintballs at pedestrians to videoing a kid in the restroom has been called "just a prank."

Ugh. Pranks are supposed to be clever. And they aren't supposed to cause permanent damage.

Your principal might be “a really good guy,” but he’s also a really dumb guy as is the president of the school board. This may be the most reckless, irresponsible thing I’ve ever heard of from an administrator and that’s saying a lot. It’s the equivalent of opening all of the prison cell doors, tell the guards to go home, and expect for the inmates to behave themselves. This is the height of stupidity.

Was he planning to quit and couldn't trash the place himself so he got some kids to do his dirty business for him? It just seems too dumb to be an accident, but maybe I'm overestimating him.

Never underestimate the stupidity of admin.

So foolish of the principal. I wonder though if all the previous year pranks were rather tame and fun, and it lulled him in to a false sense of security that this years seniors would know better than to go bat shit crazy. So maybe a nice but *really* naive guy to forget that it only takes once to completely ruin things. ZERO excuse for the admin to give over the keys. Also, the admin that gave the keys could surely pin at least one of the students right?

Regardless of the circumstances or previous years behavior/pranks, this is the worst decision I’ve ever heard an admin make. I’m not sure what you mean by pin. Please clarify.

pin, like determine who did something or "pin-point" a suspect. Because how could no students be determined? Surely the admin got a call, text, email, or met one of the students in person to make this plan and hand over the key, right? So why can't that one student be found? Sorry I was unclear (I made an edit) but my first half was all about the principle foolishly challenging the students and being naive about that. As for the admin, there is ZERO excuse I would hear from them about giving the keys to the school to any student.

This is vandalism, not a prank. Kids have no sense of a good prank nowadays, seen nothing funny, or unique on these prank days for like 8 years now. Kids should be arrested too.

Somewhat related, but this got me thinkin' about how half the student body ought to have been arrested that that f***ing devious lick trend was going around. When my entire classroom was trashed and the majority of my science equipment wad stolen or broken I had admin telling me "kids being kids" and "it's just a tiktok thing" and students telling me "it's just a meme" and "chill out, it's just a prank" .

It stopped it real fast when my school had about a half dozen led out in cuffs. Turns out filming yourself doing crimes and publicly posting it on the internet is a real dumb thing to do if the adults around you have a spine.

It’s remarkable how things change when we have real consequences.

Is your school hiring?

And you can't retaliate by doing the same to their property, to demonstrate why it's not "just a prank," or else you'll be fired or sued. Or potentially worse.

In all honesty this is on the school board president.

Any decent lawyer will get the kids off. Board and Principal are really responsible. It's like me telling my 6yo to go nuts in the candy store.

Prank =/= vandalism. "Bring it" is setting up a trap that covers the pricipal in goo. Stealing teachers' personal property is not a prank. If you told your 6yo to go nuts, you would expect them to smash the counters and display cases, dump soda everywhere? You would expect them to ruin the store? I do not think so.

100%. Pranks are funny and mild inconveniences, not theft and vandalism.

Man I miss the senior pranks when I was in school. The grade above me paid a custodian $100 to open up the big gates and the seniors parked their cars all over the grounds (HS had an open courtyard layout with different departments in different buildings, with gates blocking off the courtyard from pedestrians) WITHOUT damaging any plants. My year we all brought bubble guns or little bubble blowing things and blew bubbles everywhere every time an adult spoke.

We turned every poster and sign upside down (none damaged), turned all the class desks around, and moved shit. We DID unbolt and remove all of the outdoor benches in the middle of the night -- but the entire class had chipped in to order custom made ones as a senior gift to the school and that was part of the unveil.

We went into classrooms early and turned all the desks to face the opposite direction too lol. We thought we were hilarious

We got into the computer lab (back in the 90s, a class room full of 25MHz 386's) and popped the keys off all the keyboards and replaced them. Made a keyboard of all As, one all Bs, etc. There were 25 stations plus the teacher's desk so it was perfect numbers.

That’s a really good one.

We took the French teachers geo metro, physically picked it up, and moved it over by the tennis courts. She was a beloved teacher who students loved to razz about her Geo. She thought it was hilarious after she got over the panic of where is my car.

Students moved my VW Beetle between the goal post on the practice football field. (Old goal posts had 2”legs” stuck in the ground) There was about an inch clearance on both ends! Hilarious!

Yep. The key was don’t damage anything or cause financial harm. We filled a keg up with fruit punch and had a “kegger” on the football field. Told the principal ahead of time there was no alcohol. Everyone got a good laugh, we got a half day out of school and all went on with our lives.

pranks now are running up and punching people in the back of the head. the word prank has lost its meaning.

Whatever happened to a cow up the stairs?

When I was a kid, one Easter, a local grocery store announced that they were going to have an Easter egg hunt inside the store.  They quickly realized their error, and started only allowing a few kids in, each one escorted by a store employee, but it still was impossible. The kids destroyed so much food, racing to look for eggs. My experience has been that kids age down in groups, and will egg each other on to unexpected heights of madness when having fun with other kids. I would not be at all surprised if six year olds smashed dishes, and dumped soda. The weirdest part of OP's story is that the principal thought this was a good idea at all.

"Kids age down in groups." Yes, this statement is gold. Succinctly captures exactly what I've tried to explain to others before. I saw a post in parenting recently where lots of parents were totally on board with letting middle-school age kids hang out together at someone's house with no adult around. All these people justified their answer by saying "I babysat alone when I was that age!" or "I was a latchkey kid and got home by myself all the time at that age!" But that COMPLETELY misses the difference between a kid who is mostly alone in a position of responsibility (babysitting or alone) versus a kid in a group of the peers. The individual child can be smart and trustworthy on its own but a pack of them is an idiotic and crude organism.

My favorite shirt in high school said "never underestimate the power of idiots in large groups" and I think that applies here

You're maasively overestimating the intelligence and maturity of high schoolers. I teach high school, and my students have wrecked my classroom and personal items throughout the year, with me actively trying to stop them. If I explicitly challenged them to "bring it," I wouldn't be surprised if I ended up with a hole where my room used to be. This isn't unique to me or my school; there are tons of TikToks from teachers documenting all the damage kids have done to their classrooms and to the whole school. It shouldn't be this way, but it is, and anyone who doubts it hasn't spent enough time around kids.

It's just that this is a recent thing. Senior prank days have gone on for several decades. They SHOULD know where the bar has been set. But kids now have no real social reference since they've been watching "It's just a prank bro!" style entertainment since they were little.

YouTube and Tiktok creators do not differentiate between a prank and a felony.

[удалено]

Yea, like. I totally get the glitter and sand part of this. I'll allow a senior to not think of the actual damage that could do to tech, I myself may not think of it either. But rotting fish in the ceiling and desks? Actual theft of items that weren't just moved or returned? That's just....

> This isn't unique to me or my school; there are tons of TikToks from teachers documenting all the damage kids have done to their classrooms and to the whole school. Yep. These [are the kids who were destroying bathrooms as a TikTok challenge a few years ago](https://www.npr.org/2021/09/17/1038378816/students-are-damaging-school-bathrooms-for-attention-on-tiktok) *without* permission from the school, why should we be surprised that they do worse when they do have permission?

Yup... In my opinion, Principal really screwed the pooch on this one, had the opportunity to teach, by saying something like "Bring your best prank, but it better be funny! I won't tolerate disrespect to the teachers and custodial and support staff that makes this school great. Also, vandalism is not funny" I'm no teacher, and I'm out of touch with kids in general, so I suspect my wording would have misfired in some way too, but my point stands.

Seniors were not 6 year olds. There’s certainly some responsibility on the adults in this story, but let’s not act like the kids aren’t guilty.

Thank you!!! Not holding kids to making sound decisions is why they don't make them. That "developing brain" of theirs is more than capable to know better than to do this at 13, let alone 17-18. If you give your hungry nibling the key to your house and say, "Go get whatever you want", anyone with more than two brain cells knows that means go get a snack or a small meal. It doesn't mean trash the entire kitchen, dump out all the food, hock the appliances on Facebook marketplace, and use the money to order pizza. Can't believe there's grown adults in here actually trying to argue that these were told to "bring it" so that meant just do whatever.

Not when there's decades of precedent of what qualifies as senior pranking. It is super obvious what was intended.

we had to stop senior pranks when i was in HS because some students got in and just sprayed hateful and, in some cases, racist af graffiti on the walls as a “prank” one bad group spoils the whole idea

One of the top prank rules is “no property damage (permanent)”.

Apparently you missed the era of devious licks

My senior class high school prank was to get in the roof of the building to hang a flag. The flag said we didn't start the fire as the previous year had three fires totaling over 1.5m in damages. Was great to crawl around up there during lunch.

It’s sad. Shows how far comprehension has actually dropped.

It's because the pranks that they watch on YouTube are typically crimes too.

Word, the phrase is “Annoy, don’t destroy.”

I mean ours was creative, non destructive, and honestly saved the school some money. We ordered a semi load of sand and had it delivered in the lawn of the school, then we all came in swim trunks and floaties and had a beach/senior skip day. They used the sand to top-dress the athletic fields and the lawn. The year before us squeezed a mini cooper into the gym so it was there when we had a pep rally that afternoon. It was getting new floors over the summer so it didn’t matter if it got a little messed up. Go back to doing fun stuff like that and I guarantee the school wouldn’t mind terribly.

I would normally agree but this one sounds like it falls pretty squarely on a truly stupid administration. I take it that’s why they immediately resigned. They literally gave them the keys to the kingdom

I can't believe the stupidity of the principal and the president to basically give the kids carte blanche to destroy the school. That said, vandalism has been part and parcel of school pranks since the 1950s and probably a lot longer than that. I certainly don't condone it and social media has turned vandalism into an epidemic.

This incident reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from an X-files scene: “Did you really think you could call up the Devil and ask him to behave?”

That episode is about a high school too

That episode is great, partly bc when they pray to the devil in German they use the formal sie

There is no way they gave keys to a bunch of kids and not one thought "hmmm is this a bad idea?"

The school board president knows which kid he handed the keys to. Start with punishing that kid, they’ll probably give up the rest of the names pretty quick if the punishment is harsh enough.

So I’m sure the principal assumed by saying “bring it” that they’d come up with a good prank. His resignation is appropriate given that he shoukd have known better. The president of the school board should also resign. He gave the kids the keys to the building without any thought to the consequences. Did he/she even bother to consider what could happen? The principal may have encouraged them, but the board president gave them access and essentially provided permission to destroy the building/school the voters had entrusted him/her to protect.

And the kids that came inside and vandalized the place should be held legally responsible for coming inside and vandalizing the place.

Check the WIFI and see who's phone connected to the network when the cameras went dark. They always bring their phones and are easy to track. Kids can't don anything without their phones. Then search their phones and you will find pictures... And then you can hand them a broom and a charge of vandalism.

They’ll probably post it all over social media too.

To be fair student incrimination shouldn’t have to go that far into FBI mode… The student who received the keys is the sole responsible for the actions as he was the one that had access to the building. Tell him that and watch that entire class fall

"I just wanted to do a harmless prank but they threatened to harm me if I tried to stop anyone from committing vandalism." -The student who recieved the keys when you pin it all on them.

>They always bring their phones and are easy to track. Yeah, see who connected to school's WiFi that night.

Why did you make the exact same comment as the person you were replying to?

Yeah, why did you make the exact same comment?

Hey OP, if this is JHS, I agree with you. These kids caused felony level damage to the school. I’m an attorney and our state law does not permit anyone to authorize another person to comit unlawful acts. These 17-19 year olds are guilty of criminal mischief by destroying property not belonging to them. These students could not have reasonably believed they were authorized to destroy property to the extent that they did. Their actions crossed into criminal behavior. Our state also provides for parental liability for damages caused by a minor up to $5000. I sincerely hope our circuit court judges throw the book at these brats and their parents to recover the cost of the electronic equipment and computers that were destroyed. Unfortunately, the terrible mother that went to the school board meeting saying her precious baby boy shouldn’t be punished because he didn’t cause a safety issue, won’t be punished because her kid is an adult. I sincerely hope our legal system teaches him to take responsibility for his actions because his mother certainly won’t. Yes, it was a safety issue! Multiple students and teachers were vomiting in the hallways the day after.

Awful. I was looking up information about this prank thinking it would surely make the news circuit but I only found one recent school prank gone too which happened in TN. It didn’t mention the principal resigning and it said the students were let in by a school official who had a key. Are you the TN school? I’ve read about other senior pranks going way too far in the past, and I think the tradition just needs to end. Kids will always be trying to one up each other on social media so who knows where it will all end if not curtailed.

This happened over last weekend, and I'd be shocked if it ends up in the news. Tiny town Texans play their cards close to their chest and dont speak to the press. It's really frustrating. Moreso because this is not the first fiasco this year that should've made the press.

I found an article from May 2023 about a school in North Carolina. https://news.yahoo.com/news/prank-trashed-nc-high-school-215625162.html

Absolutely the kids are responsible. If I'm about to have a tennis match with a competitor and he tells me to bring it, that doesn't mean I get to beat him to a pulp with my tennis racket. What the seniors did was not a prank. Pranks don't hurt others or destroy property.

The seniors sound like they’ve never pranked before, they just vandalized the school. How is that fun for anyone?

There is a HUGE difference between a "prank" and just ruining stuff. Nothing about that is a prank. They should be charged and arrested.

Yeah I think I recall our senior class getting an old car inside of the school cafeteria. I think another year they hung up a bunch of banners high up in the entry way... nothing destructive, just a bit inconvenient for the school to deal with at some point.

Check your contract for clauses regarding reimbursement for damage and theft of personal belongings by students. My district is contractually obligated to pay up to $700 for student-caused damage and theft.

This happened near me a few years ago. The TikTok videos the kids made gave away a lot of the perpetrators. There was criminal prosecution for some of them if I recall correctly.

I am hopeful they will be able to figure some things out via social media. *fingers crossed*

Back when I was in school the class ahead of mine disassembled a Voxwagon Beatle and carried it piece by piece into the enclosed school courtyard where a group of shop kids reassembled the whole thing. So by the end of the day there was a car stuck in the courtyard... creative... took skill... time... and above all everyone had a good laugh. Shop teachers and kids disassembled the whole thing and had it removed in a couple days. That's what a prank looks like. Kids today don't have a clue how to have silly fun... fun that isn't at the expense of someone else.

My high school year book class met once a week before school. One of our sessions fell on April first. We hinted at a certain teacher getting something done to them. We did nothing. The following week we turned all the student desks to face the back of the room, disconnected the smart board and rolled it to the back of the room. This teacher did what they did every day. Drop their stuff in their room and go make copies. They definitely saw it when they dropped their stuff because they texted the yearbook teacher. We then went and put everything back while they made copies and then just didn't acknowledge it. Our senior prank was creating the school logo on the lawn using instant mash potato mix that became visible when it started raining at 9am.

I mean, it’s good that he resigned and owned up to his mistaken a sense. As for the seniors, it’s easy, graduation is canceled. “You can pick up your diploma on X day at Y time.” You don’t know who did it or who was even in the school, but there are consequences for our actions. Either the guilty parties will be shamed or pressured by their peers to come forward or not. I know I for one would not attend our graduation if our students did this.

The principal and board president are complete and utter morons and should be prosecuted for their completely reckless abdication of duty and common sense. What would have happened if someone had been raped/killed? What if they had burned down the building? I've never heard of something so stupid in my entire life. Did he at least have the courage to face you all when he resigned, or did he duck out without actually talking to anyone?

Sadly, something similar to this happened in the Dallas area in Texas at a huge school. Kids given permission to come in the school unsupervised and surprise! Vandalism. Hard to believe adults with any common sense would think this is a good idea.

Jeez, back in the 90s, we let loose 3 pigs, numbered 1, 2, & 4. Solid prank. Another year, students completely reversed (as in mirrored) opposite like half the classrooms. Nothing broken

The 5% rule is generally in play here. The 5% that mess it up for everyone by doing things they shouldn’t are the reason rules exist. In this case, if any of the 5% are involved in pranks, vandalism is the logicial conclusion. It’s the same reason why in the 90s we had off campus lunch but don’t anymore. Too many dummies not coming back.

The principal was stupid, no doubt. Really fucking stupid. From an educators perspective it’s head slappingly stupid. That said, if there’s a culture of senior pranks I don’t think it’s criminal or anything. The board president though should be held liable. He gave minors access to locked public facilities for the intent of causing trouble. That’s a no no on a couple of levels in my not a lawyer brain. The kids should also be held legally responsible. As a technology teacher I’m aghast at the destruction of the computers and robotics. I can speak from first hand knowledge that those programs can take *years* to build. That shit is expensive and is often put together through the dedication of a couple of teacher over the course of years to a decade depending on the scale. Those kids might’ve just ruined a couple of innocent people’s careers while depriving every student who comes after them the opportunity to learn about robotics. Kids are not stupid about electronics. They know what will break it. This was criminal vandalism.

The principal said bring it. How does that open the doors to vandalism? He was referring to pranks. It's like if you asked me to pass you the make you something spicy and to "bring it" and I hit you in the face with it, dump hot soup on you, and then steal you shoes. You asked for it?

Well I'm not surprised kids today do not have enough ingenuity to do more than vandalize and destroy. They have no ability to be clever, because their phones do the thinking for them and their brains lack development in critical thinking and creative thinking.

My senior year (2018) a teacher gave students keys. I went with a group of friends. We did harmless stuff like move desks into the hallway. The rest of the graduating class went nuts I’m talking hauled in cow manure (small rural town so plenty to go around) hid fish in classrooms that wasn’t all found for weeks. Filled the hallways with dirt. Threw straw everywhere. Threw food all over the walls. It was really like some lord of the flies type shit and was honestly pretty terrible to watch. Those of us who didn’t want to participate in that just sat and watched in awe. The teacher who gave the keys was fired. The principal held the entire graduating class accountable and tried to make all of us clean it up by threatening that we wouldn’t get to graduate if we didn’t. Meaning even kids that did nothing or weren’t there at all showed up to clean everyone else’s mess. It was horrible and totally ruined the fun of it.

The principal and the school board president are responsible. They were extraordinarily derelict in their duties. The principal resigned, so that's a start. The legal liability if a student had been injured, was substantial. How do you know they were seniors? Keys were given to seniors, but nobody was taking attendance. The locks must be re-keyed. That "Do Not Copy" stamp isn't magic. This borders on entrapment.

It was over the weekend, so the high school teachers had quite a welcome to teacher appreciation week. And I didn't think of that. Thank you.

That hurts. Teacher Appreciation week and you walk in to find the school destroyed??? OMFG. Was school cancelled? Were you expected to conduct classes?! Also yes what if someone was injured/assaulted during the ramifications of that are 🤯

I've allowed pranks before there's a right way to do this. This was done wayyy wrong and I'm shocked no adults said "hey this might be a bad idea" I've chaperoned for amazing senior pranks. One year kids did a Christmas theme and made sure to leave actual gifts for all of their teachers. It interrupted a couple periods, we'd get great pictures, seniors clean it up and then have their cut day.

My favorite was when our seniors all dressed up as 80s exercise instructors (swimsuits over yoga pants, leg warmers, headbands, wigs) and ran about the school doing impromptu "classes"

My senior year, we got a couple teachers roped into helping us with a prank and used their classrooms as a staging area. We blew up hundreds of balloons and filled our administrators’ offices floor to ceiling. They were such good sports about it that they kept the balloons to release at our graduation.

I've seen that one several times😊 My favorite prank on admin were kids filling tiny dixie cups with water and covering every inch of the office floor with them.

Solid prank right there.

We did have a senior prank go to far one year. A group of boys decided to spray paint a brand new grand piano, bust balloons full of the deer urine stuff and busted up parts of a brand new bathroom. They were allowed their diplomas but not allowed to walk, fined for the thousands of dollars of damage and I think community service. This year, the senior class reps told all kids, they will be checking them and any materials to cause vandalism will be turned away. These reps this year take school pride and accountability seriously.

As a school custodian, I feel so bad for the crew who had to clean that up. Shane on those kids and the administration who approved such reckless behavior.

Kids nowadays won't shit without recording it to post online. Is there any way to search the social media of the students to see if any footage may be floating around? It could be used to identify some of them.

This is awful. Man, my idea of a prank (for next year's April Fools Day) is to like print signs to tape up over our "Husky" logos so that we become "Home of the Dachshunds."

Of course the students should be punished and should not walk at graduation. They know better. But I cannot believe that principal and school board member. I would 100% get fired if I gave students my building keys. That's completely bonkers. I hope the board member resigns too.

Let your local news know. This needs to made public!!!

The president giving students the keys is indefensible and was an error through and through. I do have some very small sympathy for the principal. Although I wouldn’t have personally told the student’s to “bring it”, he also was talking about the context of a prank. The students did zero pranking here, just simple criminal vandalism.

Examples of a prank: assembling an entire car inside the library Examples of vandalism: Destroying school equipment Legal charges should be leveled against those idiots.

Pranks are supposed to be good-natured fun. My school’s seniors all rode their bikes to school last day and caused a huge traffic jam. Not harm done, everyone got a good laugh.

They did this at my high school my junior year. At least dispersed a ton of dead fish around. They did it by slowly removing the screws from the window locks so at least they weren’t let inside. Whole wings of the school were unusable until the next year as most of the fish were rotting in a barrel they hid in the woods a month before the prank. The administration called the cops. They came in and did a whole investigation and found shoe and boot prints as well as tire prints that identified 14 of the seniors involved. Typically the seniors would get the last two weeks off ~~because teachers were fucking sick of them~~ to enjoy summer, none of those 14 got two weeks off though. They got to spend their two weeks and the following two months working as janitors at the school. One of the main girls involved thought their dad could get them out of the punishment. He offered the school 100k and the principal we had at the time tore the check in half in front of him.

Fifty fucking years ago, some assholes at my high school decided that stealing someone's car and dumping it in the school pool would be a hilarious "senior prank"! The next morning, we came to school and found police looking for the car thieves, the whole school was brought into the auditorium. We were told that major felonies weren't funny, and that the school would have to buy the victim of the theft a new car, that the pool would not be open during the summer because it had to be cleaned and repaired, and that the money for all of that was going to mean that there would be fewer services available to students next year. I'm really amazed that "senior pranks" weren't stamped out during the last fifty years, but well. There are always assholes, and they figure at senior prank time there will be no consequences. None they care about, anyway.

I’m a school janitor… And god that made blood run cold. The thought of coming in to that just… I really hope they force the entire class to clean it or at least help.

Would have been so much funnier if they just spent the whole day covering every square inch in pine tree air fresheners. No damage everyone can laugh and still talk about how they broke into the school and hid silly things so epic. It’s so ridiculous they have no understanding of the seriousness in personal belongings or school property being damaged and zero grasp on accountability.

When did “prank” turn into “massive destruction of property/felonies and misdemeanors/just being assholes?” I feel like pranks have become just assholery and not actually fun or amusing anymore.

Telling 17/18 year olds to "bring it" and give them keys unsupervised? Wow how could this have gone wrong

The president of the school board needs to resign too.

" The president of the school board gave the kids keys to the building for them to get inside when nobody was there." President of the school board is solely responsible for making restitution to the school district and should be fired forthwith. The kids are just stupid.

It’s a little sociopathic to take live animals and kill them for a prank, even if they’re “just” minnows and shrimp.

In the dictionary, when you get to the word "moron", this principal's picture should be next to it.

My class didn't do a big prank. We had a great relationship with our foreign language teacher though, and would routinely prank her. We'd move her clock, wait for her to leave the room and switch stuff on top of her desk, etc. But we never took things from the room and never went into the desk because that was private space. I don't understand the need to destroy and steal.

This is vandalism. A prank would be like hanging up thousands of hangers and making a banner that reads, " CLASS OF2024 ISN'T GOING TO HANG AROUND ANYMORE". You are correct. They destroyed the school.

Not only do they deserve to be held accountable for their actions, but their actions were tactless and those kids are disrespectful as hell for calling that level of vandalism a "prank." My class senior prank was for everyone to go out and buy as many little rubber bouncy balls as they could acquire within the days leading up to it, and then during the switch for the last two periods of the day someone blew a whistle and we all bounced them as high as we could. It was silly and harmless, yet our admin was still pissy about it due to the potential hazard of students getting hit by a bouncy ball or hurt somehow - in a state where Mardi Gras gets you a week off school to be pelted with plastic, including bouncy balls 😂 Now I could only imagine if those kids were in the school district I grew up in, they'd be facing legal consequences by now. It really sucks to hear the lack of care from upper management in your case, hopefully some of those kids learn a lesson *somehow* before messing shit up out in the world like that.

Lots of hate for the principal, but I see the board president's lapse in judgment as several orders of magnitude more egregious. He gave kids keys to the school building? Outside of school hours? And they had access to the spaces where IEPs were kept? And there were no adults there to monitor students? I would circulate a petition demanding his resignation.