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Uploaded: Friday, October 30, 2009, 5:04 PM
Paly delegation apologizes to Gunn for egg fight
Students, principal say they will pay for cleanup, damage
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by Chris Kenrick
Palo Alto Online Staff
They said they were sorry -- and they would pay.
Student leaders from Palo Alto High School along with principal Jacquie McEvoy went to Gunn High School Friday to apologize personally for damage caused by Paly students who held an egg fight at Gunn Tuesday night.
The Paly delegation assured Gunn that cleanup costs would be covered by Paly, either by students themselves or from the student activities fund, according to Gunn principal Noreen Likins.
Gunn has hired an outside firm to clean up the mess, but the job was not finished as of Friday afternoon. Egg damage at Gunn was significant in the parking lot, and extended to the football and baseball scoreboards, baseball field and the school's new track and newly opened swimming pool area.
The egg fight is an unofficial tradition of Paly's "Spirit Week" homecoming celebrations and in past years took place in a eucalyptus grove at Stanford. After encountering police at Stanford Tuesday, Paly students spontaneously decided to switch the venue to an area behind Gunn known as "Strawberry Hill," near Bol Park. But the egg fight spilled over onto the larger campus.
"I'm really glad the Paly students came over," Likins said Friday. "They realized they had not thought through the ramifications of their actions.
"It was an impulse, 'where should we go?' Had they kept it to an undeveloped area, it wouldn't have been such a problem."
Gunn students and staff, reeling from a spate of student deaths at the CalTrain tracks -- the most recent one just last week -- were sad and disheartened to arrive at school and find their facilities defaced, parents said.
Likins said she did not like the idea of asking Paly students themselves to clean up the eggs.
"It takes expertise and, for the most part, it's been done," Likins said. "Eggs are a substance that really damage a lot of surfaces."
At Paly, meanwhile, Spirit Week activities were back to normal while officials continued to investigate the egg fight, which involved up to 200 Paly students.
"This is an incident that is under investigation and we do not discuss student discipline issues with the press," Paly Principal Jacquie McEvoy said in an e-mail.
School officials are investigating reports that some students used frozen eggs, which a school official compared to rocks.
"This is a student-discipline issue," Skelly said. "There are consequences for students.
"One of our biggest responsibilities is making sure kids are safe. And when kids are throwing eggs at each other and there are hundreds of eggs involved, that is not a safe situation.
"There's no question that either the perpetrators or the school are going to pay for the cleanup. Everybody recognizes that that's the responsibility of the people who did this.
"I was there yesterday and there were still eggs along the path at the gym and things like that. Let's just say it doesn't show well."
Many students and parents said the school's immediate reaction to the incident was heavy-handed, with threats of mass suspensions.
"Please have Paly kids clean up the eggs, but not suspend them," a Gunn parent said. "Make them clean up, use class funds to fix things, but don't affect their futures."
"The Paly administration has come down like a ton of bricks, with all the subtlety of a punch in the face," another parent said.
Skelly and McEvoy said the investigation is ongoing. It is not clear how many students were suspended.
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Posted by Sethro, a member of the Palo Alto High School community, on Oct 30, 2009 at 6:05 pm Eggs? That's nothing. Paly students used to spread Limburger cheese around Cubberly back in the 70's.
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Posted by Paly Parent, a member of the Palo Alto High School community, on Oct 30, 2009 at 6:26 pm Thank you for reporting this. It is good to see that the kids are facing up to the consequences of their behavior and are willing to apologize and foot the bill for the clean up costs.
At the same time, I hope that the community at large will now stop condemning the students, the administration and anyone else they think can think of. Kids made an impulsive poor choice as kids do and hopefully have learned a lot from this. They are basically good kids who didn't think their actions through, a very common quality in teens. I am sure that the Gunn kids make mistakes too, I seem to remember an explosion near the science wing in a trash can sometime during the 90s.
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Posted by Sharon, a resident of the Midtown neighborhood, on Oct 30, 2009 at 6:27 pm egg fights, minus frozen ovum, is a tradition and should take place away from buildings and cars.
It was really bad judgment by Paly students to pelt Gunn facilities.
The critters in Foothill Park or the Bay lands, eg near the duck pond, would gobble the eggs as an early Christmas presents and nothing would be left by daylight.
Given all the other issues impacting young adults we need to chill out on this one.
BTW Limburger cheese is very difficult to find in Palo Alto so Gunns payback may have to be patchouli oil, Web Link.
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Posted by Parent, a resident of another community, on Oct 30, 2009 at 8:59 pm Paly Parent,
Seriously!!! Why don't you just say your sorry that it happened and drop it? Why go into history from 20 years ago? Of copurse children make mistakes-- the apology is perfect--
your rationalization that other people make mistakes does not reflect well on the community and the school
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Posted by A Noun Ea Mus, a resident of the Professorville neighborhood, on Oct 30, 2009 at 9:24 pm "Skelly and McEvoy said the investigation is ongoing."
Oh PLEEEAZZZE, don't they have better things to do.
Rules or laws were broken, some kids caught, some kids not.
I understand that "justice" and punishment of some sort must be meted out to those caught.
But bringing in The Grand Inquisitor in order to extract confessions and name other egg perps, this is going over the top. Like the car thing with Senior Prank day (I was walking downtown with my dog past the kids as they were getting the car ready for this prank) on Guinda St.
It is my understanding that the egg fight is a yearly ritual between the Paly Senior and Junior classes, ordinarily Gunn has nothing to do with it whatsoever. But when they were driven out of Stanford's hallowed ground the egg fight migrated to Gunn.
There, eggs which would have done little more than provide substinance to squirrels, ravens, crows, and mountain lions, suddenly did real bad damage to structures....as eggs can apparently be a Weaapon of Mass Insurance Deduction when thrown at painted surfaces....
My recommendation is that the yearly egg fight be moved to the new expensive Beasely statue, purchased in Marie Antionette style as the city workers are dissed....
What is the worst high school in this city? What is the worst fraternity on campus?
Meanwhile...who delivered the medical cadavers to the alumni dinner? who dumped fizzies into the pool during a swim meet? Every winter the trees are filled with toilet paper, every spring the toilets explode...but this time someone is going to put their foot down. And that foot is McEvoy!
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Posted by 名無しさん, a resident of the Adobe-Meadows neighborhood, on Oct 30, 2009 at 9:49 pm [Post removed by Palo Alto Online staff.]
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Posted by Ric, a resident of the College Terrace neighborhood, on Oct 30, 2009 at 11:03 pm The stains will always be there as a reminder, what paly students did. Egg stains can't be removed unless painted over or sandblasted. Putting water down won't just clean it up. I hope you're so proud of what this as done to the community in Palo Alto. No more please!! And parents take some blame too for your kids. You are the one's raising them. Both Gunn and Paly!
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Posted by A Noun Ea Mus, a resident of the Professorville neighborhood, on Oct 31, 2009 at 11:43 am Gee maybe something could be inscribed above the permanent stains--"What Paly Students Did", fb "Never Again!", visiting dignitaries would make pilgrimages to the site of the atrocity and give heart wrenching speeches about egg stains in our time.
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Posted by wrong just wrong, a resident of the Downtown North neighborhood, on Oct 31, 2009 at 1:09 pm One girl was suspended because someone was using a shirt with her last name written on the back. She was not at the egg war, instead she was at the Paly campus in debate class, debating with other members of the Palo Alto Debate Team. Now she is having a hard time to prove herself and she is already missing classes. There are other kids that are suspended that had nothing to do with the egg war. This is just wrong. The assistant principals is proven one more time that she is NO HELP for the students and families.
BTW, will these suspensions go in their records? Will that create problems for them when they are applying to college? Should we expect that most of kids will end up at community colleges because of these suspensions???
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Posted by palo alto mom, a resident of the Duveneck/St. Francis neighborhood, on Oct 31, 2009 at 1:24 pm Suspensions go on your record, that's kind-of the point.
You are allowed to explain the cause of the suspension (I think being part of an egg-fight with 200 other kids won't keep you out of most colleges).
Just wondering - where did the parents of these 200 kids think they were?
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Posted by Former PA resident, a resident of another community, on Oct 31, 2009 at 2:30 pm High school kids should know right from wrong - and damaging property is wrong. Please quit making excuses for your kids and teach them to be respectful. Covering up for your kids is only doing them harm, not to mention society. They should be disciplined, as there are (or at least should be) consequences for unacceptable behavior. Parents should be parents to their kids and not their kids "best friend."
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Posted by B. Li, a resident of the Barron Park neighborhood, on Oct 31, 2009 at 3:47 pm I applaud the PAUSD's efforts to hold these students responsible for their actions, including suspensions or expulsions as deemed appropriate. It would be different if it was not school related but obviously it was. Shame on the parents that aren't going to impose consequences on their children for committing a criminal act, be glad they weren't arrested.
Teach them that mistakes and poor judgement, including law violations have consequences! Maybe it will keep them out of jail in the future....
Some parents need to step up and stop hating PAUSD for doing the right thing!
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Posted by re: wrong, a resident of the Greenmeadow neighborhood, on Oct 31, 2009 at 3:53 pm im a junior at paly and want to say that the rumor about the debate girl being suspended is false. youre being lied to.
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Posted by Just curious, a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood, on Oct 31, 2009 at 3:54 pm Would any of the Paly parents like to come over to Gunn's campus and clean up the rest of the egg shells? Although most of the damage has been cleaned up, the egg shells are still all over. And why not bring along your student, to demonstrate there are consequences for one's behavior.
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Posted by A Noun Ea Mus, a resident of the Professorville neighborhood, on Oct 31, 2009 at 5:07 pm A decades long tradition used to be conducted on Stanford's campus.
It was moved to Bol Park for some reason.
Driven out of Bol Park it occurred on Gunn campus.
Is there any evidence that Gunn's campus was the intended original target?
Some kids made a very stupid decision and froze the eggs. Thankfully no one was seriously injured.
The dangers of throwing frozen eggs, as well as the expensive property damage arising from eggs thrown on painted surfaces, needs to be broadcast.
Some of the kids were caught. The school is obligated to then proceed with reasonable discipline for those caught (but expulsion? come on).
Any "ongoing investigation", or pressuring kids to give up others involved is a bit over the top IMO.
There is a decades old rivalry between Gunn and Paly, of which we see evident here via posts by both kids and parents. Some are apparently very invested in it.
This tradition (between Paly classes) will probably go on, despite predictable attempts to ban it.
IMO-- if some place without buildings and cars could be designated for this event that would be the best way to "go forward".
Let the posturing and braying go on......
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Posted by Gunn Mom, a member of the Gunn High School community, on Oct 31, 2009 at 7:57 pm So what if the egg fight is a tradition. Some of these kids probably got caught up in the moment, some probably didn't care but sorry - they should all be held accountable for their actions and the damage they caused. I remember when kids that vandalized other people's property had to go in person and apologize and then do something to "make it right" - either clean up or pay for the damages. Cudos to the Paly student government for taking the first step. This was a really rotten and heartless thing to do to Gunn. The student body is struggling with the loss of a number of their classmates, they have waited years to finally get nice, new athletic facilities and the Paly students who participated in this just sent the Gunn students a big "up yours". Someone needs to tell those kids they acted like jerks and that they need to take responsibility for their behavior. How do we learn to control impulsive behavior? By suffering consequences.
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Posted by PA Resident, a resident of the Embarcadero Oaks/Leland neighborhood, on Oct 31, 2009 at 8:53 pm I thought if you damage someone's property, cause over ~$300 loss, then it's a crime.
Since one BEING KIDS can excuse people from committing crime in this country?
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Posted by ???, a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood, on Oct 31, 2009 at 9:19 pm What is it going to take to make all those self-righteous people happy? A public flogging or caning of all Paly students maybe?
Please give it a rest now. Yes, they are only kids and kids have done things like this throughout the ages. It's not as if they went around gunning people down.
But it seems that in Palo Alto, kids are no longer allowed to be kids. What a shame.
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Posted by Gunn Student, a member of the Gunn High School community, on Nov 1, 2009 at 1:04 am "Gunn students and staff, reeling from a spate of student deaths at the CalTrain tracks -- the most recent one just last week -- were sad and disheartened to arrive at school and find their facilities defaced, parents said."
I don't know who's making this up but it's simply not true. In fact, a lot of us were amused by the eggs adorning our campus. Almost none hit buildings; it was primarily a collection of scattered shells in the parking lot. This article is attempting a dramatic portrayal of mythical widespread damage that never existed. In addition, linking eggshells with the train suicides is absurd and sensationalistic. Asking the students responsible to clean up after themselves is realistic, but marring their permanent records with suspensions for a minor, not to mention biodegradable mess, is unbelievable.
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Posted by Nora Charles, a resident of Stanford, on Nov 1, 2009 at 1:38 am I think it's safe to say that there are some traditions that deserve to be phased out.
Could the destructive, potentially lethal egg assaults perhaps be replaced with a sports game between the two schools? What about a dance? Or a weekend trip of some sort? Anything sounds better than a frozen egg in the kisser, the messy, smelly aftermath, and the (presumably) low paid workers who must clean up the mess. (Though Paly culprits should be responsible for that.)
Remember, it's all fun and games until somebody loses an eye.
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Posted by Bob, a resident of Woodside, on Nov 1, 2009 at 7:02 am Throwing an egg, especially a frozen one, at another individual is assault. These kids should be arrested and thrown in the tank until they sober up and face their consequences. What happened to order in Palo Alto? Where was the PAPD? Why didn't the Stanford PD arrest these animals upon the original crime scene? Stanford PD should be sued for allowing these criminals to freely cause more damage.
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Posted by Paly Parent, a member of the Palo Alto High School community, on Nov 1, 2009 at 7:25 am They have apologized and offered to pay for the clean up. It sounds that professional clean up was necessary to do a proper job.
Some seem to think that apologies and offering to pay for the clean up is not enough. Young children know that after an apology and amends are made, that is the end of the argument. Play together nicely now.
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Posted by Too many agendas, a resident of the Barron Park neighborhood, on Nov 1, 2009 at 7:38 am "Almost none hit buildings; it was primarily a collection of scattered shells in the parking lot. "
You obviously did not see the athletic facilities. Over 50 eggs were thrown on the track alone.
What I don't understand is the extreme positions that many are taking. Defenders of the egg throwers are downplaying the entire incident as if nothing had happened while others are calling for their heads. The reality is somewhere in the middle. There was some damage and a fair amount of cleanup costs. The egg throwers should be held responsible for that. After that, some assurance that this level of vandalism doesn't happen again would be nice (I have no problem with the "tradition", but you can't use that argument to excuse clearly over the top behavior).
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Posted by Gunn mom, a resident of the Midtown neighborhood, on Nov 1, 2009 at 9:37 am wow, how defensive you Paly parents are. Bet you wouldn't be if it was Gunn's tradition and the egging just happened to ruin all YOUR facilities.
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Posted by A Noun Ea Mus, a resident of the Professorville neighborhood, on Nov 1, 2009 at 11:22 am "Throwing an egg, especially a frozen one, at another individual is assault. These kids should be arrested and thrown in the tank until they sober up and face their consequences. What happened to order in Palo Alto? Where was the PAPD? Why didn't the Stanford PD arrest these animals upon the original crime scene? Stanford PD should be sued for allowing these criminals to freely cause more damage."
Better yet the Centurions could decapitate them, put the heads on poles in front of Paly to deter any such future "criminal" activity.
"Sober up"? Were any of them inebriated?
"These animals".
"these criminals"
Is this posted as a joke?
They are just kids who participated in a yearly ritual egg fight between the Senior and Junior classes. Historically it has taken place in undeveloped areas (though to Stanford all it's areas are for development) where egg damage wasn't a real justifiable concern.
I wouldn't be surprised that, once it went to Gunn, some of the Paly/Gunn rivalry may have influenced the target selection.
If the eggs truly "ruined all" Gunns facilities then perhaps this should be viewed as a blessing in disguise. After all, if mere eggs can ruin an entire high school's facilities, what would an earthquake or even mild funnel cloud do?
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Posted by Bob, a resident of Woodside, on Nov 1, 2009 at 12:30 pm These kids can and certainly should be charged with:
Assault
Attempted Assault
Harassment
Property Damage
Disorderly Conduct
Vandalism
Why do white collar Paly kids get away with this and not kids from more diverse communities? I fully comprehend that I would end up in county jail at least overnight if I threw an egg at someone. Possibly spending much more time, possibly even in prison, if I threw a frozen egg and hurt someone. What are the parents teaching these kids at home? Don't they realize they are fully liable if someone sues because of this?
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Posted by A Noun Ea Mus, a resident of the Professorville neighborhood, on Nov 1, 2009 at 1:07 pm You left out "failure to dispeers", "resisting arrest" in the boiler plate list of charges.
If there were an egg fight in EPA do you think it would make the national news?
Apparently they aren't exactly "getting away with it". Quite the contrary as a virtual witch hunt seems to be underway. But probably it wont' reach the prosecutorial heights you wish.
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Posted by Erin, a resident of the Leland Manor/Garland Drive neighborhood, on Nov 1, 2009 at 1:30 pm Paly Parent - you should get the facts before you post. It was 1994, on the quad, three kids were involved, all were suspended and did not walk with us at graduation ceremonies and they had civil suits brought against them. You'd better believe their futures were affected. Maybe not in the long run but to not walk with your graduating class and face charges is a pretty big deal.
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Posted by Student, a resident of the Embarcadero Oaks/Leland neighborhood, on Nov 1, 2009 at 7:32 pm Oh my god....Why on Earth is everyone debating about this over a STUPID MESSAGE BOARD? Are you seriously kidding me? I was one of the few that chose not to go to egg wars that night. Palo Alto has been taking away so many things from us and treat us as if we are children. While I admit that frozen eggs were uncalled for (Only ONE person froze eggs), suspending random students for things that admins only "overheard" from other students that were being interrogated while their RIGHTS WERE VIOLATED is not okay. Palo Alto has changed so much in the past years. Its as if us teenagers have no say in anything anymore.
Why don't you parents actually take time to talk to your children about what is stressing them out than discussing it on a stupid website with other parents that are just as ignorant as you, because whatever you guys are doing now is obviously not working.
My parents went to paly and told me about all the pranks that all the schools in the area pulled on each other and no one took the pranks personally. I love how you parents who probably caused twice as many problems at your age are whining about stupid eggs. There is no way that anyone can prove who threw eggs unless someone physically saw them...So we cannot blame only a few people out of the hundreds that participated tuesday. And if I see any of you parents coming up with stupid excuses about how "times have changed", then I will be disappointed...
So why don't you all GROW UP and move on with your lives? As a gunn student said earlier, NOT THAT MUCH DAMAGE WAS DONE. Everyone is using the suicides are a crutch to make us feel more sympathetic towards you guys.....Yeah all the suicides are a huge deal, but using them as an excuse is embarassing.
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Posted by older Gunn grad, a member of the Gunn High School community, on Nov 1, 2009 at 7:40 pm Student, at this point, you COULD have a point...except you sound too whiny
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Posted by re: wrong, a resident of the Greenmeadow neighborhood, on Nov 1, 2009 at 8:07 pm exactly how were the students rights violated? did they get water boarded?
Most of my friends turned themselves in. they were treated fine and only got a day of suspension with a couple of hours of community service. you should hear their stories about being in the office. doesnt sound like torture to me.
there are so many rumors going around and none of them are true. i guess thats why theyre called rumors.
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Posted by MeMe, a resident of the Old Palo Alto neighborhood, on Nov 2, 2009 at 1:48 am These kids committed criminal vandalism and should be dealt with by the justice system as any juvenile delinquent would be. I don't see why the school district should be allowed to take the matter into its own hands and shield them from the legal consequences of their actions. Why isn't the PAPD involved? These kids are a year or two from adulthood. Some of them may already be 18 and that makes them adults. Commit a crime such as this after you turn 18 without a school district to protect you and it won't be dismissed as a childish prank -- your fanny will wind up in jail. Allowing them to get off merely by apologizing and paying for the cleanup teaches them a bad lesson: that they can evade their legal responsibility and buy their way out of trouble.
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Posted by Bob, a resident of Woodside, on Nov 2, 2009 at 7:34 am Times have changed at Paly. When I attended, a student committing assault and vandalism would have had charges pressed against them, to set a precedent for other students to follow. These days, parents and administrators are controlled by students; by children. A byproduct of the hippy-dippy baby boomer days perhaps.
This will change. People are waking up to realize society is spiraling downward. Should children be allowed to throw things? Should near adults be allowed to throw things? What kind of parent allows for such animal behavior? The gorillas in the zoo have better parenting.
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Posted by A Noun Ea Mus, a resident of the Professorville neighborhood, on Nov 2, 2009 at 8:06 am The egg fight was a voluntary activity. Everyone involved was a willing participant. Good luck with any fantasy of an assault charge....I can just hear the DA saying to the fantasy cop arresting scores of kids for assault when it was an "all volunteer" traditional egg fight, "are you out of your mind?".
Yes some of them are probably 18,...but note the salivation over it as regards the potential charges...and some of them might also have traffic priors which could add to any sentence, and some of them may later go on to even greater heights of criminal conduct and having this prior on their record will help shield humanity from these nefarious criminals....geez.
This yearly egg fight is a long standing tradition. I am sure there are historical nerd pockets of people who didn't ever participate, or who looked on it with abhorrence.
Maybe enraged citizens could demand a Grand Jury look into this!
This is getting to be downright comical.
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Posted by Gunn grad, a resident of the Palo Alto Hills neighborhood, on Nov 2, 2009 at 11:47 am Re: whether suspensions affect college applications-
I was suspended for 3 days when I was a student at Gunn several years ago, and I don't remember having to report it to colleges on my applications. But even if my memory is wrong, I ended up being accepted to UCs and a number of other first tier colleges without any problems so if I did have to report it, it didn't seem to have an impact on the outcome...I don't think a school disciplinary action like that affects college applications unless you're expelled. I only applied to public schools though so maybe it's different for private schools.
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Posted by Live & Learn, a resident of the South of Midtown neighborhood, on Nov 2, 2009 at 1:20 pm From the latest report, it sounds as though only about 50 or so kids were involved in the egg "fight", hardly a majority of the class.
I have to agree that throwing frozen eggs is absolutely irresponsibly dangerous to others. This is a "tradition" (can we really call it that when so few students participated?) that got out of hand.
I'd like to point out that egging others' property is vandalism. It is VERY expensive and difficult to clean up. It is not a funny prank at all and the so-called tradition deserves to be abandoned. Students, please use your marvelous creativity to identify a new tradition that is REALLY funny AND harmless...One that we can all enjoy and celebrate with you!
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Posted by RKP, a resident of the Duveneck/St. Francis neighborhood, on Nov 2, 2009 at 1:39 pm To me this whole mess of students looks like converted into PALY and GUNN parents' fight and blaming and flaming school authorities. Seriously!
I don't see anything wrong with the egg fight just that the location is wrong. If the kids were serious they should have consulted a law enforcement officer and picked a place which was appropriate for their egg fight. I feel this type of activities do help teenagers get rid of their stress and find happiness in this stressful times!
We (parents) are not happy when students are unhappy and looks like we can't bear their happiness either.
For this time its best to give a strong warning and guide them in future, how to organize something which won't blow up into a catastrophe.
Parents ---> get a life and move on.
Students ---> You folks are not babies any more, look up meaning
of 'Consequence' .
School admins ---> What they did was little mess, make them cleanup,
pay for it, make them work in a shelter but do not
write it in their records or suspend them!
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Posted by OhlonePar, a resident of the Duveneck/St. Francis neighborhood, on Nov 2, 2009 at 2:12 pm Yeah, you have to report suspensions. I don't think colleges are going to take an egg-battle suspension too seriously, frankly.
By the way, I don't believe for one second that anyone writing in didn't do something idiotic as a teenager. Some of you drank; some of you drove way above the speed limit; some of you smoked marijuana.
Why do I think this? Because I was a teenager and I know what teens did then--they test boundaries, they make bad choices. And they learn from doing that.
As adults, we need to cut a little slack--because people did the same for us.
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Posted by A Noun Ea Mus, a resident of the Professorville neighborhood, on Nov 2, 2009 at 2:46 pm "To me this whole mess of students looks like converted into PALY and GUNN parents' fight and blaming and flaming school authorities."
That about sums it up!
So if "only" 50 kids had been involved people think it's a tradition worth abandoning? So if instead 2,000 kids had been out throwing eggs at each other (where no property damage could occur) then you'd embrace it? No, it would then be played as an "Egg throwing riot" and shrill voices to call in a SWAT Team would be seen.
I don't see any need for the yearly Paly Senior/Junior egg fight to be abandoned. It's been a fun tradition for years. The problem this year is that it has been thwarted rather than embraced, so it got pushed onto property with predictable property damage. I am shocked, shocked that gambling is going on here...
But par for the course...
Web Link
But let's decide that the egg fight must end! Why not, theatrical historical re-enactments are gone, everything else is shriveling under the bright light of TA'ss'd paranoia. Paly parents talk to your seniors and recent grads about what's been afoot.
I'll bet if one looks under the hood this whole thing started when some person(s) made a concerted effort to prevent the yearly ritual from happening where it always has. Then, like a game of Whack A Mole, it popped up elsewhere with predictable effects. Even better for the agenda.
Perhaps the school anthem could be changed to "Little Boxes"......
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Posted by Live & Learn, a resident of the South of Midtown neighborhood, on Nov 2, 2009 at 3:48 pm Forgive me, but the reason the district decided to take action in the first place is that Stanford had complained of damage to their property and harm to students on their property in previous years. PAUSD was being a responsible neighbor by trying to get students not to do this.
Now Gunn's property has been damaged. The people who think this is a harmless prank really must never have experienced the damage that dried eggs can do to building surfaces. This is vandalism...and VERY expensive to clean up.
Sending out the police may have been a bit much, but the students who apologized were right to take responsibility for their poor judgment. Good for them! That was a good demonstration of responsible citizenship. Taking that a step further, it would be great to create a new tradition that does not involve defacing the property of others. They are smart, creative kids...and I have confidence they'll figure out a great alternative.
They made a mistake. They apologized and offered to help with clean up, as they should have. I hope they will learn from this experience and make better choices in the future. Let's move on.
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Posted by MeMe, a resident of the Old Palo Alto neighborhood, on Nov 2, 2009 at 6:26 pm << Sending out the police may have been a bit much >>
Nonsense! If someone pelts my house with eggs, who do you think I'm going to call, the school superintendent? No, I'm going to call the cops.
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Posted by PALYKid, a resident of the College Terrace neighborhood, on Nov 2, 2009 at 7:59 pm I would just like to mention that what MacEvoy said about how only 50 students participated in egg wars is FALSE. Hundreds of juniors and seniors took part in the act.
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Posted by A Noun Ea Mus, a resident of the Professorville neighborhood, on Nov 3, 2009 at 12:35 am OMG!!! Hundreds of kids!!!! If hundreds of kids attacked my house with eggs I wouldn't waste my time calling the police as they'd be out-manned. I would call the Governor and request the National Guard be called out! Martial Law, and shoot on sight!
Or maybe a handful of teachers could arrive and take down names.
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Posted by jack, a resident of the Adobe-Meadows neighborhood, on Nov 3, 2009 at 2:33 pm Can't help but notice a lot of "...back when I was in school in the 19x0's", or "...my parents pulled pranks and nothing happened to them..".
^^ Times are different, now, I think; don't you?
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