What did the principal know and when? That’s the question parents were asking after Principal Jacqueline McEvoy’s State of the School Address on Sept. 18, 2008.

Parents walked away from the State of the School Address feeling that McEvoy justified her administration’s reactions to the ‘Freshman Friday’ incidents of Aug. 29, 2008, by indicating she did not have prior awareness of the possible hazing. However, Site Council minutes and Associated Student Body members’ comments reveal that McEvoy was aware of the annual occurrence and was ready to take preventative and punitive action against perpetrators more than a year ago.

This year’s eggings, water-balloonings, paintballings, pantsing, and paddling on ‘Freshman Friday’ gained community-wide attention and led to the suspension of at least 10 students. While most parents at the meeting were outraged at the activities, others also expressed anger over the administration’s handling of ‘Freshman Friday.’ They said that the school did not give proper warning to students thinking of participating in ‘Freshman Friday,’ considering the harshness of the administration’s actions.

Parents were confused by the message McEvoy expressed at the State of the School Address. When the principal was barraged with parent complaints about her handling of the situation, she expressed that she had no warning about the events of ‘Freshman Friday.’

“We want more appropriate consequences for the students,” one parent said at the meeting. “There are many parents with suspended children of all grades who are concerned with the administration’s heavy-handed policies and how they have addressed this issue. We don’t like how the discipline was handled.”

“I did what I had to do with the information that I had,” McEvoy said, in a later interview with The Paly Voice, of the administration’s response to this year’s hazing.

Another parent suggested that notifying the Paly community about ‘Freshman Friday’ and the possible consequences for offenders in advance would have helped deter the hazing that took place. Many parents quoted in this story wished to remain anonymous, citing concern for administrative retribution.

“We would have liked to see some kind of communication about the event,” the parent said. “At the very least, a warning to alert parents and their children about Freshman Friday.”

In response to these criticisms, McEvoy cited a lack of prior knowledge about ‘Freshman Friday’ as her reasoning for not notifying Paly families beforehand about possible repercussions.

“Given that this [hazing] has happened historically, not to say that it’s right, but given that the admin was aware that it existed, I don’t understand…” one parent began, but she was cut off by McEvoy.

“I was not aware,” McEvoy said in response, at her State of the School Address.

Another parent at the meeting said: “In all honesty, from the information that I’ve heard, it was anticipated that there might be problems… there was no attempt made to communicate with parents… to say ‘We will not tolerate anything on Freshman Friday; the consequences will be suspensions. Please discuss this with your students’.”

In response, McEvoy said, “I didn’t know the events had happened until it was brought to my attention… To me, we did not have this situation last year that I know of.”

McEvoy reasoned that her punishments were appropriate, considering she allegedly did not know ‘Freshman Friday’ existed at Paly before this school year. Her emphasis on the issue of her unawareness was not lost on many of the parents who attended the State of the School Address.

“I left that meeting with the strong impression that she had never heard of Freshman Friday whatsoever before that day [Aug. 29],” Paly parent Melinda Christopherson said in a phone interview. “It seemed that it was only because the vice principal drove past it [the hazing] that she first became aware of it.”

“I know now that Freshman Friday is real in Palo Alto,” McEvoy said in a later interview. “I didn’t know that [before Aug. 29, 2008].”

Parents expressed their disbelief at the principal’s avowed lack of awareness on what they considered a long-standing event at Paly.

“We just find it hard to believe that the administration had no idea about it [‘Freshman Friday’] and was caught off guard,” another parent said at the meeting. “Given that this has happened historically and given that the administration was aware that this existed, they [the administration] should have anticipated that there might be problems.”

Although McEvoy asserted repeatedly that she was unaware of the existence of ritualized freshman hazing in prior years, the minutes of the Site Council meeting that took place at the beginning of McEvoy’s term as principal, more than a year ago on Sept. 10, 2007, suggest otherwise.

The Sept. 10, 2007 meeting’s minutes, posted online, state:
“There was considerable discussion about the treatment of some freshmen during the first week of school. Some of the egg throwing and water balloons take place off campus. Jacquie [McEvoy] clarified that the school has responsibility for every student from the time he/she leaves home until he or she returns home. If students are misbehaving during school time, they can expect to be punished both by the school and by the police.”

ASB Spirit Commissioner junior Olivia Diamond was present at the 2007 Site Council meeting.

“From our discussion in Site Council after last year’s ‘Freshman Friday,’ I definitely think that McEvoy knew that ‘Freshman Friday’ is a tradition and always has been at Paly, including eggings and water-balloonings,” Diamond said in a recent phone interview.

The minutes suggest that, in the meeting from the beginning of the last school year, McEvoy was not only privy to the existence of questionable “treatment of some freshmen during the first week of school,” but that she announced that she was prepared to respond to such a threat to student well-being.

The write-up of the 2007 Site Council meeting, which appeared on The Paly Voice on Sept. 13, 2007, also indicates that McEvoy was planning to take action to prevent ‘Freshman Friday’ incidents of 2007. The story states: “She [McEvoy] said that [the school’s right to involve police] means that upperclassmen who attack freshmen would face legal consequences in addition to school punishment. ‘I’m a big fan of the double-whammy,’ McEvoy said.”

“The real concern [at the Site Council meeting] was about Spirit Week,” McEvoy said this week. “The term Freshman Friday was never used.”

McEvoy said in her interview that evidence presented last year was not concrete enough for her to take preventative action.

“In schools, everything is a learning curve,” McEvoy said. “To take serious action at school, you need more than anecdotal evidence. The evidence I heard last year [at the Site Council meeting] was anecdotal; it was rumor. I now have hard evidence that this [‘Freshman Friday’] occurs, and that it needs to stop.”

“If I knew what I know now, if I had to do it over again, we would have done things differently,” McEvoy said.

Editors-in-chief Grace LaPier, Gillian Lui and Connie Yang, and reporter Patricia Ho, contributed to this story.

Editor’s Note: PTSA member Mary Dimit’s quote was removed due to unclear sourcing. In addition, junior ASB Secretary Gracie Dulik retracted her quote. See the published correction for the latter here.