It can be seen on hallways and bathroom stalls, vulgar and sometimes cryptic messages, tattooed to the very skin of Palo Alto High School. Graffiti is a common sight at most high schools nationwide and Paly is no exception, recently seeing a large increase in graffiti.

According to assistant principal Jerry Berkson, he has seen certain tags, or signs, appearing more often. Consequently he has been going into the bathrooms to try to look for patterns in the graffiti messages.

“It [graffiti] goes in spurts,” Berkson said. “Last year we had a ton.”. Berkson noted that the month of February is usually a high month for graffiti, possibly due to the change in weather or the coming of second semester.

“Each week, the custodians come in with pictures of the graffiti,” Berkson said. “Then I email the Palo Alto Police Department and we compare notes from previous incidents.” The Paly administration works closely with the Palo Alto Police Department to try to capture graffiti artists, or as they are also known, taggers.

“We get a lot of complaints about graffiti around town, especially in the public garages,” Sgt. Sandra Brown of the PAPD said. “We have two officers that are assigned to the schools and they go out and check in with the schools.” According to Berkson, if you are found to be tagging at school, you will most likely be turned over to the police.

“For adults, if it’s a felony they go to jail,” Brown said. “We only take kids to jail for violent crimes. A kid will probably not go to jail unless they continue to break probation.” If a minor is arrested for graffiti, a form of vandalism, the minor or their parents pay a fine and a restitution bill which pays for the cleaning up their graffiti.

Every piece of graffiti the police find that has or resembles the tag that one was originally charged for will be credited to that tagger and the tagger will be forced to pay for its cleaning. The tagger is then put on probation and, if he or she breaks probation and tags again, the fines increase.

Both the PAPD and the Paly administration try to credit certain tags to individuals by matching them with art in a suspected taggers notebook. According to Berkson, most taggers practice and develop their tags by writing them in notebooks. These notebooks can be key pieces of evidence in convicting a tagger for his or her crimes.

“Graffiti is bad for the school’s atmosphere,” freshmen Kyle Pryme said. “It makes the school look trashy.” Besides the visual damage graffiti does at school, it also takes time and money from the school district, especially the district custodians.

“I couldn’t put an actual number on it because our custodians clean it [graffiti] up,” Berkson said. “But they spend a lot of time cleaning graffiti.”

“It [graffiti] is bad,” Paly custodian Max Arana said. “I spend an hour and a half cleaning graffiti a day.” Students have also noticed the graffiti and some have noted their disgust.

“Why do you take the time to scratch or write something down on the walls of the bathroom?” senior Michael Fittoria said. “No one cares if you do it, it’s a waste of time, and it’s not cool.”