As seniors wind down their final year of high school, the time came for the annual senior prank is both anticipated (mostly with dread by administration) and even expected. Past “pranks” have ranged from the harmless act of showering the senior area with hole-punched paper to more destructive acts which included bleaching the carpet in the senior area,  releasing crickets throughout the school, and squirting shaving cream on cars in the parking lot.

All these pranks have had a moderate to significant impact on the operations of the school, especially the bleaching incident.  According to AP Spanish teacher Joe Ciluffo, that particular “prank”cost more than $30,000 in repairs. Students were prosecuted, their parents had to pay, and they couldn’t walk at graduation or attend prom. The consequences for these damaging pranks is understandable, but this year’s harmless move by the senior class was met with a surprisingly hard crack-down by administration.

This year, the seniors decided upon a simple, fun “prank”: they all rode their bicycles to school, met and chatted in the parking lot, and proceeded to park their cars bikes in individual spaces, just as they would with their cars on a normal day. Some even took the parking passes out of their cars and hung them on their bikes, confirming that these bikes were not taking away parking spaces, just simply replacing a car with a bike.

Once administration caught wind of the situation, they came outside and swiftly removed the bikes from their spaces, throwing them onto the grass surrounding the lots. Many seniors do not know where their bike is or if it was broken during the removal process. Vice Principal Chuck May ordered security guards to remove the bikes.

The Michigan Bicycle Law states, “An individual may park a bicycle on a highway or street at any location where parking is allowed for motor vehicles, may park at any angle to the curb or the edge of the highway, and may park abreast of another bicycle.” This law states nothing about bicycle parking in the lot being a violation, making the administration’s move out of line.

“All I’m trying to do is save the environment and enjoy this fresh, crisp morning,” said senior Camille Wolanin.

Some students, unfortunately, decided to bring the activity indoors. A select few brought Razor scooters to ride around the halls, and one senior brought a child-sized motorized toy Jeep. These, of course, were confiscated by administration, most likely due to the possible safety hazard. While those confiscations can be more justifiable, the issue as a whole was a major over-reaction.

While other, not so harmless events may have precipitated this particular reaction, one has to consider the often quoted comment – “Pick your battles”. All the seniors  wanted was a fun way to round out the school year with their classmates, but administration created a blizzard where there was just a snowflake.