Some parents and students continue to point fingers at the Paly administration for not having a consistent punishment for participants of ‘Freshman Friday’ and blame the administration for not acting upon its previous knowledge of the annual tradition. We are simply asking the wrong questions. We, as parents and students, are focusing on the wrong aspects of ‘Freshman Friday’ because we are focusing on the least important issues. While we stack blame upon each other, we are forgetting that, most importantly, steps must be taken to prevent ‘Freshman Friday’ from terrorizing underclassmen. We have also forgotten about acquiring full accounts of the victims, including Kelly, a freshman victim of ‘Freshman Friday.’
“A car full of kids were videotaping and throwing eggs at kids at the same time,” Kelly (who wishes to remain anonymous, as with everyone else in the article) said. “That moment has scarred me, and I will never forget that day. I can still picture their faces in my head, and the laughter that followed.”
According to a concerned Paly parent of a freshman victim, his son and many of his friends have gotten the impression that ‘Freshman Friday’ will happen on the last Friday of each month all year long. Both the freshman and one of his friends were hit by eggs, but managed to avoid being hit by paint balls. The egging physically injured his friend, giving him a bruise and a cut on his forehead.
“My wife and I saw the cut and the welt on his forehead,” the father of the victim wrote in a letter to Principal Jacqueline McEvoy. “The cut was not bad, just a scratch. But what am I supposed to tell my son when he and his friends discuss how they need to protect themselves for the next Freshman Friday?”
It is debatable whether the administration should have devised consistent policies in punishing participants of ‘Freshman Friday’ and whether McEvoy really knew about ‘Freshman Friday’ ahead of time. I know seniors who were involved in ‘Freshman Friday’ are worried about how their actions will affect their college applications. I also know that some parents of victims are itching to execute the harshest punishments in revenge, but what’s done is done. The most important message left is that some upperclassmen have displayed characteristics of immature meglomaniacs by branding their younger counterparts as “noobs” and “wannabes” that need to be reminded of their “low rank in school hierarchy.”
Kelly posed a rhetorical question to the upperclassmen: “Put yourself in the ‘freshman’s shoes.’ If you were still a freshman, would you want to live in fear of the upperclassmen on Freshman Friday, or in fact, any day during your freshman year?”
I agree; I certainly would not want to live with that sort of fear.
Point being, seniors often forget that they will be freshmen in college next year, and juniors forget that they will suffer through the hardest year of their high school career. We all have our angst and worries, so we may as well share our concerns through milder and more skillful communication. Eighth graders and seniors all eventually rise to the top, cascade down and must climb back up the ladder of a ridiculous, ageist, classist hierarchy. We, as seniors, probably would not want older college students to inflict severe tricks on us next year.
Upperclassmen indiscriminately pelted people with eggs from the overpass and hit many student bikers and pedestrians during ‘Freshman Friday.’ This is an insult to the students of various classes that were targeted. They missed at least one important lesson: if one wants to attack freshmen, he or she should make sure that they are actually freshmen and not anyone that simply crosses the overpass. Most importantly, attacking any student, regardless of their age, gender, or ideology, is unacceptable and is a blight to the friendly atmosphere that characterizes Paly.
My brother and his friend, both freshmen at Gunn High School, went through almost two days of freshman orientation. The program is primarily led by the leadership class of upperclassmen. According to a Gunn female freshman, although seniors have unofficial privileges to a grassy area, synonymous to the seniors’ control of the Senior Deck at Paly, these boundaries are not strictly enforced. Some upperclassmen have been hostile in locker rooms to their underclassmen counterparts, but there has been little egging, paintballing, and paddling. Although I have learned that correlation does not equal causation, the lack of interaction among the different classes can indicate the reasons for the amalgamation of hostile practices.
Programs that help to mitigate the upperclassmen’s hostility towards freshmen may be critical to creating better relationships between the different classes. Assistant Principal Todd Feinberg also confirmed the creation of a Link Crew program in a press conference with The Paly Voice on Oct. 1. The annual freshman orientation has already been expanded to take four hours but will feature more bonding between teachers and students, and upperclassmen and freshmen, according to Feinberg.
If one tries to see the big picture, strengthening ties among classes and mitigating the hostility is important for Paly to uphold its status as one of the best high schools in California. Already, Paly’s reputation is deteriorating. The Paly parent expressed disappointment with his son’s first week in high school.
“We thought that by moving to Palo Alto, we were getting our son into one of the finest high schools in the state,” he said. “Instead, we feel like he’s going to school in some bad TV movie.”
Yes, Paly, this is what we have sunk to. ‘Freshman Friday’ is almost a model of the out-of-control teenagers that we see in shallow TV shows and movies. We should not give Hollywood anymore reason to stereotype teens as hormone-raging, irrational beings.