A senior prank has led six Cascade High School students in Clayton, Ind., to be suspended, caused one custodian to be fired, and sparked outrage among their classmates this week, WISH-TV reports.
Students said the prank, which involved sticking 12,000 Post-it notes to the windows and walls of the school, was intended to be harmless.
“We figured it's cheap, easy, creative, it doesn’t damage anything,” Anthony Canaday, one of the suspended seniors, told WISH-TV.
In addition to the six students who were suspended, school officials also reportedly fired the involved custodian, according to Fox59 News.
Now, Fox59 News reports that students are protesting the suspensions and firing of the school janitor by staging a sit-in in the school gym.
In response, the school has been suspending more students. According to an update from WISH-TV, 57 students were suspended Wednesday for their participation in the sit-in.
District Superintendent Patrick Spray told RTV-6 that it wasn't the prank itself that caused the students to be suspended, but rather that they were trespassing by entering the school after hours. Canaday, however, refuted the accusation, saying a school board member had given them a key to the school.
"The only way we got into the school was through a key that a fellow school board member had given us, and her daughter was also involved in this," Canaday told RTV 6. "When we have permission from a head custodian and we have a key from a school board member, of all people, saying 'Here's a key, I accept this.'"
Justine Weatherman, another suspended senior, told WISH-TV that the students were shocked by the consequences.
“I just kind of feel bad that it got this far," Weatherman told the station. "It wasn’t meant to be a big deal ... I was just shocked, first of all, that they didn't think it was funny, and that we got suspended for it, and someone got fired … I would never in a million years have thought it would have come to that."