More than 20 students from Heritage High School in Brentwood, Calif., are being suspended and denied walking in their graduation after officials seemed their senior prank too far, CBS San Francisco reports.
What the students meant to be a harmless prank turned out to be more than principal Larry Oshodi bargained for -- tying a lamb to a pole, relocating a 500-pound concrete bench, stealing school banners and splattering paint around the campus. Some of the students still need to take their final exams to qualify for graduation -- something a five-day suspension would inhibit.
Oshodi told CBS San Francisco the punishment fits, despite the students' public outrage.
“What happened," Oshodi told the sation. "... was not just a little bit of washable paint…or some harmless prank with an animal."
Now parents of the seniors are taking legal action, hoping to reverse the suspensions, the Contra Costa Times reports.
"I'm asking for a stay immediately so they kids can do their finals and asking that it be set for a hearing so the court can order that the suspensions be set aside," the students' attorney Peter Johnson told the paper.
KGO reports that although Oshodi called each parent informing them the students could still take the exams, parents aren't satisfied, Johnson told the Contra Costa Times.
"It doesn't solve anything at all," he told the paper. "All it does is make [the school] look good, like they are being merciful," Johnson said.