From decorated hallways to unexpected tricks, senior pranks have been a tradition at schools across the country for decades. City High teachers recount the pranks they remember from their previous years at the school. 

“The best prank recently was somebody smuggled a goat into one of the dressing rooms in the gym. So when people went in to change for PE, there was a goat bleating in there,” John Burkle, a City High teacher, said. 

Michael Close, one of the art teachers and City alumni, noticed that some years the senior prank was done by a group of seniors, while other times the act was done by one student.

“The one that sticks out in my memory is a student who saved napkins from the lunchroom every day until the seniors’ last day,” Close said. “And then he went up to the third floor in the cooking classroom and threw them out the window, thinking they would fly all over.”

Close remembers how the prank didn’t turn out as the student had hoped. The napkins fell directly to the ground below due to the mildness of the wind that day. 

“Mr. Bacon was standing right down there watching the whole thing happen. And so [the student] spent the whole rest of the day cleaning the front lawn of City High,” Close said.

Many senior pranks have been known to fall short of expectations, being inappropriate and claimed as unoriginal. School staff are left to clean away drawings on property or cluttered hallways. Yet, other pranks have left a lasting mark at the school. 

“I believe the slip n’ slide started as a senior prank,” Katie Lalla, a City teacher, said. “But now it has turned into a tradition.”

What started out as a prank is now done annually at the end of every school year. Seniors go on the lawn of City and spend the day outside with a slip n’ slide, and even Mr. Bacon has participated in the activity.

“[There was a] phone prank where [students put] their phones in their lockers and all of a sudden you hear this ‘boing… boing…’ coming from all the hallways, “ Carrie Watson, a sociology and government teacher, said. “Disruptive? Yeah. Funny – Did people run around trying to figure out where [the noise was coming from]? Yeah. I thought that was one of the best I’ve seen.”

While most pranks done by the seniors are done at the very end of the school year, Burkle recalls a time when the seniors did one on the first day of school.

“The seniors switched all the [hallway] signs for all the freshmen. So if you looked at the wall and you were trying to find your classroom, you would have gotten lost,” Burkle said. “That was a pretty funny one.”