Every morning students walk into the school, say good morning to the security guard at the front desk and head to their lockers. The morning of Wednesday, Jan. 12 was different. When students walked in, they were immediately greeted by the seniors, who were telling students that they were late and to sign in.

The senior class typically plans a prank on Upper School students on a random day the last two weeks of the semester as one of their final goodbyes to the school. The prank is kept secret and primarily targets juniors. 

The seniors had a great time planning and executing the senior prank. They designed a prank that was centered around minor inconveniences. Many seniors stationed themselves at the front of the school and made students sign in as they entered the school, even if they had arrived on time. They also flipped tables and chairs, put photos on walls and gave students special identification cards.

“I walked into school and the seniors gave me a Mr. Shorr badge which was funny. They kept checking my badge and I thought it was a good bit because it connects to something relevant to our school,” Junior Jamin Weiss said.

Senior class presidents Nathan Gershengorn and Oren Swagel led the planning process. They began by surveying their grade for ideas, which eventually had to be approved by the administration. 

“[The entire process consisted of] coming up with ideas, sending out forms, working with administration [and] figuring out what we needed and where we were getting it,” Swagel said.

The seniors brainstormed many ideas, but had to narrow down to one idea to use for the prank. In order to do that, the seniors had to vote on which idea they thought was best.

Gershengorn’s favorite idea the seniors came up with was: everyone would bring two watermelons and there would be around 100 watermelons going around the school. However, they were not allowed to carry out this idea. The most popular idea, the idea that they ended up using, was minor inconveniences. 

“The reason why we chose to do a lot of small things is that we talked about it on grade gov and we couldn’t find one themed prank that we all thought would be funny, so we instead opted to do lots of little things so that there would be something for everyone to enjoy and participate in,” Gershengorn said.

The seniors put in a lot of time and effort to plan the prank because  it was a significant event for them that would serve as a lasting memory for their grade. Seniors stayed late after school the day before the prank in order to set it up. They all worked together and had a fun time, according to Gershengorn.

“The most important thing for the prank is that people in our grade get into it and are excited about it, and I think that people really are,” Gershengorn said.

The rest of the students at the school seemed to enjoy the prank just as much as the seniors. In addition to the minor inconveniences, the seniors decorated their younger siblings’ lockers with embarrassing photos. They also gave the juniors slips of paper saying that they tested positive or negative for something funny. Weiss was one person who received a slip, saying that he tested negative for hips because he has gotten surgery on both of his hips.

“I really liked the prank because it built off some jokes around the school like our very important ID policy and of course some seriousness around Covid but I thought it was good how they made a joke around these serious topics.” Weiss said.

At the end of the day, the seniors left satisfied with their prank. They all enjoyed it and were proud of how they made the most out of the idea.

“Overall, everyone in our grade had a great time putting together and executing the prank, other students seemed to appreciate it, and I’m really happy with how it turned out,” Gershengorn said.