Half of Texas high school’s graduating class suspended over prank

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Half the senior class of a Texas high school has been suspended over a "harmless" prank that some parents have called an overreaction by school administrators. 

Around 40 seniors at Comfort High School received two-week suspensions for the May 13 practical joke in which students placed plastic forks on the school football field while others entered the school after hours. 

"It was a harmless senior prank that all of us parents knew 100% what was going on," Hope Jay, who has two seniors at the school, told WOAI-TV. "They had planned as a group, you know, 40 students, which is half the senior class… to fork the field, which is putting plastic forks in the dirt."

Some students went further and entered the school after-hours and engaged in vandalism. The school is located 49 miles north of San Antonio.

"For the most part, there were balloons, there was a deer that went crooked on the wall, there was some saran wrap, there's been no damage, no destruction, no graffiti, no defacing of property, and no police reports," Jay said.

She said the students have been given in-school suspensions and are barred from participating in senior activities. 

Fox News has reached out to Comfort High School Principal Darren Williams and Comfort Independent School District Superintendent Tanya Monroe.

Some parents are accusing school administrators of doling out blanket punishments. Bruce Lott, the parent of the graduating class' salutatorian, said his son has been mistakenly linked to the kids who entered the school. 

"The group of kids that came up and put forks in the field and left is being punished equally as those that went into the school," Lott said. "And it's just, there's just no no equity to the punishment."

Shannon Tonroy, whose daughter is the valedictorian for the 2021 class, said her child placed forks on the field but never went inside the school.  

"We all actually kind of thought that this was their way of pranking us," she told the news outlet. "You know, they, they, you know, the kids go in and prank them while they turn around and prank the kids. And that would have been absolutely fantastic, a great way to have dealt with it."

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Jay said the suspended students are struggling with the punishments. 

"They are depressed," she said. "They are they're not eating. They're crying themselves to sleep."

Tonroy, who owns a liquor store, placed a sign outside the store congratulating the senior class. 

"We're so forking proud!!" it reads.