Disaster in the form of a chevy volt

By Margot Camp ‘23

The trouble began on Monday March 6, 2023 when Catlin Gabel School (CGS) seniors attended a secret meeting to discuss the upcoming senior prank.

The meeting was organized by senior class presidents George Pritchard ‘23 and Mazli Mehr ‘23 and took place in the lower library classroom, Gerlinger. As students shouted out ideas, Mehr wrote them briskly on the whiteboard.

“We were all sort of popcorning ideas around, we had a lot of ideas that were either very elaborate and impossible to pull off or very inappropriate or destructive to the campus.” Pritchard describes.

For example, there were some ideas such as, “messing with teachers’ offices, doing stuff in the library, putting live animals inside of buildings…” States Upper School CGSA (Catlin Gabel Student Association) president Ben Rosenfeld ‘23.

There have been no senior pranks in the last few years, and none since the current senior class has been a part of the Upper School. The 2023 seniors had little to base their ideas off of and no clear guidelines for creating the prank.

“George and I had no idea until Kitty told us after the prank that, historically, the seniors work with facilities to create a prank.” Mehr explains.

Mehr, Rosenfeld and Pritchard wish that they had known this information before, so that they could’ve proceeded accordingly.

After many ideas had been thrown around in the brainstorming meeting, someone came up with the winning one.

“Someone had the idea to park on campus, literally on campus,” says Pritchard.

This idea stood out to the class co-presidents as the CGS class of 2023 has a long history of parking controversies. Over their years in the Upper School many privileges have been given and revoked. Student parking has been the subject of many all school emails and assembly announcements.

“It’s like an inside joke with the Catlin community,” says Mehr. “We thought this would be a fun way to poke fun at that a little bit” adds Pritchard.

The budding idea soon was communicated with the senior class through various emails and Instagram messages. Reminders were sent two weeks, one week and one day before the prank was scheduled to take place.

The prank happened the morning of April 7, 2023, nearly a month after the initial brainstorming meeting happened.

The plan was to “get to school at around 7:30 and park your car somewhere funny on campus(near or on the upper school) if you do not cause any physical harm to anyone or block paths that facilities use, you won’t get in trouble. John verbalized that was the policy on senior pranks. Please be EXTREMELY careful when driving on campus.”

Shortly after the prank began, it was shut down by facilities and administration. There was talk of lava tubes beneath Schauff circle, and the potential risk of a sinkhole. As most students proceeded across campus back to the gravel parking lot, one car remained.

It has been estimated that around 20 students participated in the prank. There was more planning on partaking before it had been shut down.

Rosenfeld says, “on the groupchat, some students arrived early and asked if they could park in the grass on main quad, and some students replied on the group chat saying ‘yes’.” (shown in the image below)

“I was under the impression that it was ok to park on the grass.” Says Maddie O’Brien ‘23.

O’Brien pulled her car onto the grass in the quad, thinking it would be out of the way of the paths. Unfortunately, the grass was concealing deep mud into which the compact sedan sank. She spun her wheels in the grass to no prevail. After realizing that the car was stuck, students, faculty and facilities worked together to push the car out.

“When the car sank into the mud I immediately freaked out and then Brinley started to freak out too when she realized we weren’t moving anymore.” O’Brien recalls. Brinley Tate ‘23 was a passenger in the car that got stuck.

The vehicle left large ruts in the muddy grass which facilities began to refill as the school day began. It was soon realized by students that administrators were not pleased with the outcome of the senior prank.

Most students in the senior class, through miscommunications, had been under the impression that the plan was approved by administrators. It was later discovered that this wasn’t the case.

“I talked a little bit with John, about a hypothetical prank, like their general policies for the prank and they were clear that it can’t create work for others.” Rosenfeld explained.

Before the misfortunes of the prank happened, Mehr, Rosenfeld and Pritchard hadn’t thought of the possibility that students might park on the grass. Because of this, they had not directly said this guideline to the senior class.

“We did not make it clear that people shouldn't do that. I think there were small discussions…but we did not verbalize that to the class.” Pritchard adds.

After the car had been removed Mehr, Pritchard and several administrators discussed the situation. The school day went on as normal, and since then there has been contact by the class presidents with administration and facilities.

O’brien describes how “incredibly understanding” facilities were following the incident. She was in conversation with some administrators, apologizing for the misfortune.

O’brien states: “Overall, I would say, it was a learning experience, and I will definitely think through my decisions more thoroughly in the future.”

Following the situation, Mehr and Pritchard reflected on the prank: ” I would have contacted facilities beforehand, and worked with them to create a possibly different prank, because I had no idea that it was on the table” , says Mehr.