Pranks no longer funny on campuses

Danette Goulet

CORONA DEL MAR -- Once upon a time, a child drawing a mean cartoon of

a teacher was just a minor infraction, a prank or a rebellious joke. Now

it is regarded as a threat and a possible warning sign.

It’s a lesson a seventh-grader at the middle school at Corona del Mar

High School learned the hard way this week. The student was suspended for

five days after drawing a picture of a teacher with an arrow through it,

said Jaime Castellanos, assistant superintendent of secondary education

for the Newport-Mesa Unified School District.

The student reportedly drew the picture in an art class and showed it

to a friend. Other students saw it and reported it.

Officers from the Newport Beach Police Department talked to the

student and determined there was no threat, Sgt. Steve Shulman said.

“We did go ahead and suspend the student for five days and will remand

[the student] to counseling immediately,” Castellanos said.

Before it is even installed as policy, the district’s stringent new

zero-tolerance policy for violence and bullying essentially went into

effect during a week that saw yet another school shooting, this time in a

high school near San Diego.

It is a policy that Corona del Mar parents demanded after an incident

last spring in which a one student choked another student, putting him in

the hospital.

That incident was the last straw for parents who said their children

came home regularly with horror stories of student violence on campus.

Parents continue to worry as they hear wild rumors of all sorts

floating around.

And in the wake of the senseless violence of the Santana High School

shooting Monday -- when 15-year-old Charles Andrew Williams randomly

opened fire on classmates, killing two students and wounding 13 others,

including two adults -- people are more on edge than ever.

There is no minor prank any longer. It is viewed as unsafe to shrug

off anything that could be construed as a warning sign of impending

violence.

Times have changed, administrators say, and the old pranks don’t mean

what they used to.

“I think kids have always harassed kids,” said Gary Norton, principal

of Corona del Mar. “But now it has a new significance, probably, I

think.”

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