By Clarence Cromwell
Parents of the students who streaked across the Saratoga High School campus think that missing graduation ceremonies is too harsh a punishment for the mischievous revelry, a group told the Los Gatos-Saratoga Joint Union School District board May 6.
Students begged the board to let them walk down the aisle with their classmates, but no decision could be made that night.
About 30 students made the dash in their shorts or underwear on April 21. School officials said the run was mostly unrevealing, except for a few girls who ran topless.
But principal Kevin Skelly said the 13 students caught won't be able to attend commencement ceremonies because that has been the penalty for streaking since the 1995 streak by drunken students who ran completely nude through the high school and then through Redwood Middle School. Before that, the senior streak had been a tradition at Saratoga High School.
A Saratoga attorney whose daughter attends Saratoga High School spoke on behalf of the streakers after some families asked him to do so.
Students streaked because parents didn't get a letter warning them of the consequences, attorney Allen Ruby argued.
Last year, seniors were notified with a letter that streaking would exclude them from graduation ceremonies. High school secretary Sarah O'Connell told the board that the streaking letter was prepared, but seniors hadn't received it yet.
"If a letter had gone out to these parents saying, 'If your student streaks, no graduation ceremony,' none of these students would have done it," Ruby told trustees.
The streakers apparently knew they were breaking the rules. One of them told a reporter, "I knew we would get in trouble, but I didn't think it would be that bad."
Ruby said it would be unfair to keep students out of the ceremonies, since the cause of their streaking was the lack of a letter. He added that other students and their families would suffer because they would go through a graduation ceremony without their friends.
Ruby called on the board to be merciful, saying, "An act of mercy is an act of great strength. You need to be there for them because this is a wound that will not heal if you are not merciful."
Students pleaded their cases with the board.
Nicole Ulrich, in tears, said she doesn't want to tell her 86-year-old grandmother not to come to graduation.
"I'm going to break her heart," she said.
She agreed that the punishment is unfair. "There was no written warning," she said.
David Grant confessed to taking part in the streak, although he had gotten away clean on the day of the streak. He said his friends helped him feel guilty enough to turn himself in.
But Grant thinks the school has overreacted to streaking.
"This whole deal has been a grain of sand made into a mountain," Grant said.
Fellow students have protested the exclusion of the streakers, staging a walkout April 25 and presenting the board of trustees with a 500-signature petition demanding a reduced punishment.
[ Back to Contents Page | Saratoga News Home Page | Archives ]
This article appeared in the Saratoga News, May 14, 1997.
©1997 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.