Senior pranks gone bad at Cardinal Spellman

Some senior students at the Cardinal Spellman High School, a private Catholic school in Brockton, placed condoms on classroom doorknobs, bound school lockers with plastic ties, moved furniture from classrooms into the hallways, and threw papers about. Someone also urinated on the floor. It's all part of the misunderstood tradition of school senior's practical jokes and funny pranks before their farewell at school.

A group of students were let into the building by fellow students at drama rehearsal last Wednesday night. Non-involved students said between 15 and 20 students were involved in the incident.

At Cardinal Spellman, police were called last Wednesday after the drama director and an assistant discovered what appeared to be a senior prank gone too far.

“Teenagers have a hard time with stopping each other and walking away,” Brockton High School Principal Susan Szachowicz said.

Szachowicz barred the senior class president from graduation last year after a prank turned into vandalism.

“When they are in the moment, they are not thinking, ‘This leads to this.’ They know this is a dumb thing to do and still get drawn in,” she said.

As high schools across the region prepare for graduation exercises, principals are also bracing for senior hi-jinks — and hoping teens don’t cross the line from funny to felonious.

“There are certain students that think they rule the school basically,” said Armenta Pierre, 18, a senior from Stoughton. “They think they can do what they want.”

Parents also were not amused.

Last year, a group of Brockton seniors sprayed Silly String and washable paint in the school’s Green cafeteria, squirted ketchup, overturned tables and tore down a bulletin board listing to which colleges seniors had been accepted. The seniors were ordered to pay $594 in cleanup costs, perform five days of community service and were banned from the prom and other senior activities. One student, the class president, was banned from graduation because she became belligerent while serving the second day of her five days of community service.

That, Szachowicz said, should serve as a warning to seniors this year.

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