Music echoes loudly across the fourth floor. You grab your computer, shove it in your backpack, and head to your next class, a typically mindless task. As you turn the corner to the stairway, you realize a line has formed to go down the stairs, due to a group of seniors enforcing airport security protocols at the entry to the stairwell. Confusion follows until you realize you are caught up in Parker’s yearly senior prank.
The senior prank tradition dates back decades, with the first recorded at Parker in 1974. This begs the question, why do senior pranks exist? “Some may call it a ritual. What are rituals?” Principal Dan Frank said. “Rituals are ways to acknowledge in some way an event, a set of emotions that are alive and stirring in people, so I think that the senior prank as a ritual in any school, is an expression, through behavior, a mixture of feeling, [and] there’s a sense of being able to rejoice.”
Dr. Frank also has an understanding that seniors “want to be immortal, … [and] it’s sometimes easier to express the more aggressive side of behavior than acknowledge the loss and the sadness of what separation might mean. These rituals are an attempt to somehow … find [their] way through the complexity of the emotions that may be hard to put into words, so we put them into behavior rather than words.”
Though they all sprout from the same intent, the results of senior pranks vary. Some senior pranks can be viewed as harmless and funny, but some senior pranks can be seen as chaotic, targeted, or disruptive.
Some senior pranks can even be described as perfect. But what does ‘perfect’ even mean? “I think that a ‘perfect’ prank would … mean not leaving work for the maintenance staff and not putting undue burden on the teachers when everyone is exhausted in May,” Upper School English teacher Mike Mahany said. “I think [it has to be] funny, and I think if seniors are able to poke fun at themselves, it gives us all permission to also laugh… with them. I think that brings upon an element of joy,” Upper School Dean of Student Life Joe Bruno said. It is apparent that to create a ‘perfect’ prank there are many requirements that the prank needs to fulfill. Even though the components of creating a perfect prank are particular, some well-constructed pranks have met them. “Somehow, Parker and Latin high school students worked together enough to switch schedules for a day, so the Latin students adopted the ‘identity’ of the Parker students and vice versa,” Mahany said. “Brilliant!”
“I feel as though my favorite prank was the class of 2020. At the end of the second semester, we invited each of them back into the building for thirty minutes. As they were walking around the building one last time, they all hid stickers, and even today, I still find some of them. I thought it was a lovely way to end their time and still get their prank in,” Bruno said.
“There was one senior class, and they rented this giant blowup dinosaur. It was almost two stories high, [and] it was in front of the school, and there was a big sign that said ‘School for sale, call Danny,’ and then they gave the office phone number. It didn’t wreck any property, it didn’t disrupt classes, and it was fun,” Frank said..
“My favorite prank is the year they turned the [Upper School] into an airport … in 2013,” Upper School Head Cory Zeller said. “Every stairwell became a ‘TSA security check’ … All of the classrooms were locations in an airport – Hudson News, Auntie Anne’s, etc. It was so creative!”
Now that we’ve become acquainted with the favorites, let’s discuss some of the more controversial Parker senior pranks of all time. Mahany said, “Once seniors put some kind of goo on the classroom door handles. Disgusting.” Mahany also generally dislikes “pranks that are not well thought out and merely become something like ‘let’s mess up this teacher’s classroom.’”
Another underlying issue with senior pranks is that, oftentimes, it can be hard for classes to work well together to come up with a good prank. “[T]he class would have to work together well,” Mahany said, as the prank is meant to reflect on the whole grade, not the select few who are in charge.
“We are one school, JK-12,” Bruno said. “Sometimes it interrupts the learning in other divisions, and that’s unfair to them.” This reminds students that senior pranks should carry a sense of mindfulness.
Frank’s least favorites are “the ones that require significant work and effort on the part of the maintenance crew and others to clean up really bad messes.” Additionally, he said, “those that are inconsiderate of other students in the school and other teachers in the school …?
Hopefully, an understanding of why senior pranks happen has created a deeper respect for this tradition. In addition, students should gain additional respect for those who help tidy any messes left over, physically or socially.
The Perfect Prank
A look into Parker’s pranks of the past
Olivia Forbes
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October 10, 2025
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About the Contributor

Olivia Forbes, Social Media Manager
Olivia Forbes is a sophomore, who is so excited to serve in “The Weekly” as the Social Media Manager. Outside of writing for “The Weekly”, Olivia can be found playing tennis, listening to music, or going on walks to Starbucks with her friends.