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DALLAS TWP. — Dallas High School seniors went on strike Friday morning.
About 50 students stood at the campus entrance off Hildebrandt Road in Dallas Township to greet arriving students, faculty, staff and parents with messages on signs ranging from the silly such as “Krusty Krab Unfair” to more serious, “This is what you taught us” and “Low Attendance=Low AP Scores.”
“This is part of Senior Prank Week,” Dallas High School senior Abby McCabe said. “We want the teachers to know what it feels like not be in class.”
McCabe added many seniors understand why the teachers went on strike in November, but many students “did not appreciate” being out of class.
“We wanted to be in school,” McCabe said.
McCabe is referencing the 22-day teacher strike that began on Nov. 14 when nearly 175 members of the Dallas Education Association walked off the job and remained on strike past the state-mandated return date of Dec. 13, returning Dec. 19.
The strike threatened to delay the graduation for many seniors. The school board decided to keep the scheduled June 9 graduation date.
Other students saw the prank as a way to ease tensions due to the ongoing teacher contract negotiations.
“We are trying to make light of a rough situation,” Carley Perloff, a senior said.
Superintendent Thomas Duffy, Dallas Township Police Officer and School Resource Officer Gina Kotowski, as well as, some other faculty members, were on site to monitor the two-hour student strike, which started at 7 a.m.
Duffy could not confirm how many of the striking students returned to class afterwards.
Duffy said the district did consult with the Dallas Township Police to verify the students were allowed to hold their strike prank.
“They do have the right to assemble,” he said.
Another prank the senior class committed was advertising the sale of the Dallas High School for $2,017 on Craigslist, complete with a broken water pipe, Duffy said.