Anushka Tekade

The WA sign at the front of the school.

WA seniors were let into the school on April 9 at 10 p.m. to follow through with a senior prank. According to Principal Dan Twomey, this senior prank is the first in 25 years.

According to Twomey, WA custodians are present in the building until around 10:30 p.m. Students on the night of the event showed up and were let into the building without custodians knowing their intentions.

“Students come back from trips and field trips and athletic events,” Twomey said. “I would say the custodians let the students into the building not knowing what they needed to do. […] What came across as a few individuals became a rush of students coming into the building.”

The seniors carried out their prank by opening lockers, putting up balloons and streamers, writing inappropriate things with washable markers on windows, and writing things with chalk paints, according to Twomey.

Involved seniors were punished in response to their actions.

“I think with any situation, we try to deem what we feel is an appropriate consequence for the action,” Twomey said.

A senior involved in the prank, who will be kept anonymous, stated that they understood there would be consequences.

“In a way I do understand the punishments given. Although I don’t think it was that big a deal, I do understand that administration had to give punishments to show underclassmen this will not be tolerated,” the student said. “Many of us thought it would be forcing us to stay after school to clean everything up, which we had already told the janitorial staff we would do the night of the prank.”

However, the student believed that the consequences were not divided fairly.

“They could identify us on the security cameras but didn’t divide up punishments based on what each of us individually did, [even though] some people did more than others. I wish they would’ve administered scoldings and punishments based on this instead of grouping us all together,” the student said.

According to Twomey, pranks are unsafe and can cause harm to individuals.

“We’ve tried to make it not a thing because what happens is destruction. People get hurt and real things happen,” Twomey said.

The involved student mentioned that, in their opinion, the prank was blown out of proportion.

“I personally don’t think it should’ve been as big a deal as the school made it out to be. I understand having a talk with us like Mr. Twomey did about how what we did was wrong, but I think it was an overreaction,” the student said. “I don’t like the way we were made out to be disrespectful or criminals for a harmless prank. I wish we had been talked to in a more respectful way.”