School prank draws a lot of straight faces

This year’s senior class prank at Corona del Mar High School caused $8,000 worth of damage and could lead to suspensions or expulsions for the roughly 20 students who allegedly perpetrated it, district officials said Monday.

According to school administrators, the students spray-painted the walls and doors of the school with some benign and some profane expressions, dumped bleachers and soccer goals into the swimming pool, glued pennies to locks and covered trees with toilet paper last week.

The spray paint had to be cleaned or painted over, some locks were broken, and maintenance workers had to fish the goals and bleachers out of the swimming pool, said district spokeswoman Laura Boss.

Much of the damage has already been repaired, and the district hopes to have the campus back to normal before graduation Thursday.

“It’s one thing to do something that everybody laughs at, but when it’s destructive like this — I was surprised by how many of the seniors were genuinely upset about it,” said Athletic Director Paul Orris.

A few of the students in leadership roles on campus were as displeased as the administration, he said. Orris remembers past pranks that he viewed as amusing, but not vandalism.

For instance, one year students took all of the furniture and trim from the student government director’s office — everything but the carpet, Orris said — and set it up exactly as it was outdoors, in the quad.

Another year, sand was dumped in the middle of the school and a makeshift beach was formed.

The 2009 prank’s reception has not been nearly as warm, especially given the recent cuts and the state’s threatened trims to educational funding.

“It sounds funny, but there’s no money in education. It’s silly to waste money on stuff like this,” one faculty member said.

School officials believe they have caught all of the kids involved in this year’s prank, and the incident is being investigated before disciplinary action is taken, according to Boss.

“We’re obviously disappointed at the senior prank,” she said, adding that it’s the only one that the district has gotten wind of so far, with graduation less than a week away.