Senior Prank Day. This year was no doubt a memorable one, even if people argue it wasn’t as elaborate as in previous years. 

But how exactly did they plan out and execute it? 

According to Ollie, a 12th grader, the organization and planning of the Senior Prank day only started a week before it happened. While this might seem like a long time to plan out one morning’s worth of gags and tricks, it is very last minute compared to previous years. 

“Usually, the seniors start an entire 3 weeks in advance, but this year planning began only a week before senior prank day”, Ollie remarked.

The planning was also all over the place. From idea boards in the senior lounge to group chats, there seemed to be no centralized organization, causing a lot of unnecessary confusion. The student council ended up stepping in and taking control of senior prank day, averting a logistical crisis. 

The seniors also had to meet several times with Mr. Markus to negotiate about what exactly would be allowed during senior prank day. Mr. Markus, experiencing his first ZIS senior prank day, was very firm and tough in allowing few very pranks. Mr Marcus especially emphasized that he didn’t want things that would create a massive mass, given that much of the burden of cleaning it up would not only fall on the seniors but also the faculty.

This left the seniors with very few options. 

Students also weren’t given the luxury of being able to set up the night before. Instead, droves of seniors woke up at 5am, some even earlier, to ensure that they had plenty of time to set up some of the pranks like flipping over all the furniture and draping toilet paper off of the side of the building. 

“It was pretty impressive to see how quickly we mobilized and dedicated ourselves to senior prank day”, commented Ollie. 

However, he also had some criticisms about how the day turned out.

“I’m glad that we took advantage of the COVID situation by having some unique pranks, but generally a lot of senior prank day was just the usual, unoriginal spraying of water on people.”

“Hopefully for the next senior prank day COVID will be less of an issue and then there will be more flexibility with pranks.”