“The fountain was put in storage,” Principal Michael Griffith said.

Workers are waiting for the rest of the garden to be built and the planting to be done before finishing the fountain. Planting is to begin May 23.

“They are working with the landscape architect to make sure that everything fits properly,” Griffith said.

The mason who is building the fountain is working to ensure that the fountain is constructed correctly. Griffith said, “It may be the same fountain seen out there before or it may be different.”

Sophomore Emily Maury hopes that the fountain is different. “I thought when I heard we were going to have a fountain it would be more of a classic fountain because I don’t see our school as new and modern,” she said. “The fountain didn’t reflect the overall vision of the high school.”

According to Intervention Specialist Teacher Stacy Steggart, who launched the Learning Garden project last year, the center of the garden is supposed to feature an 8-foot fountain with cascading water.

Art Department Chairman Daniel Whitely, who helped with the garden design, said the hastily built fountain was only a “layout of how things could be.”  He said the overall fountain is going to be “natural” opposed to classic European-style fountains. Whitely wants the fountain to be “more timeless” and “organic.” He said he does not want the fountain to be something out of a garden store.

Whitely and others are going to work with Shaker resident and architectural landscape designer Jim McKnight to design the fountain. Whitely said the courtyard project will most likely be finished by the beginning of next school year.

Let’s start off small. In 1999, senior pranks kept a low profile due to the fear invoked by the Columbine shooting in April. Seniors were disappointed. So what pranks did Shaker see in 1999? Smoke bombs, stink bombs and graffiti.

That’s funny. Those pranks would never be approved today. Seniors were disappointed? Imagine past seniors’ bored reactions to this year’s prank of switching the upstairs and downstairs arrows, when in 2000 seniors rubbed Vaseline on the railings and in 2008 they plastered Playboy pictures on the stairwell. See a difference?

Sure, the Sexy Sax Man roamed halls and classrooms this year, but 2000 saw a cow on the third floor, crickets in the cafeteria, and two stray pigs labeled one and three. These pranks weren’t even considered admirable. In an article from a past issue of The Shakerite, former feature editor Jesse Griffiths called these pranks “less than perfect antics,” complaining that they weren’t original enough.

Even the better pranks this year are unmatched against those of years past. Found toothpaste in your Oreo cookies? Nothing compared to laxatives in your lunch. Are projector remotes in vending machines causing a nuisance? Try maneuvering the cups of water seniors placed in hallways in 2008.

I’m not commending past pranks. I don’t approve of the 2008 prank, which resulted in dead mice in the cafeteria. Or, in 2009, when there were dead goldfish in sinks.

Pranks don’t need to be destructive to be creative. The courtyard provides evidence of this. In 2009, a human chess game dominated the courtyard. In 2010, it was paper airplanes. In 2011, strings from the windows formed a giant spider web. Next year, the courtyard renovation will be complete, and will offer opportunities for new prank ideas. Let’s hope seniors won’t follow past destructive trends with pranks that involve cutting trees.

Destruction is one reason why Principal Michael Griffith began approving senior pranks. When the front of the school was “trashed with toilet paper” in 2008, Griffith considered it a “significant statement of disrespect.”

Most destructive pranks are unoriginal anyway. Take stink bombs, for example. They’ve been set off in countless years past. “Don’t show me a stink bomb,” Griffith said. “Where is the intellect and the creativity in that?” He makes a good point.

Another reason for prank restrictions is interference from underclassemen. “Some junior painted on a senior car, something disparaging, and then the seniors figure out who it is and they want to get back,” said Griffith. “And then you get groups of students across grades upsetting each other and now they’re going at it in different ways. And so we want to eliminate that component.”

Freshmen, sophomores and juniors, you are not seniors, and you have no place at all playing senior pranks during Senior Week. You’ll get your time in the spotlight. For now, each prank you play and each conflict you ignite only spells out a stricter Senior Week for yourselves and future seniors.

Griffith assures that he is not trying to get rid of pranks. “When we say there has been tightening, it’s not to try and say that we don’t want people to have fun and to enjoy this,” he said. “It’s been a great four-year experience and we want students to leave feeling good about it. But we also want to eliminate. . . all that kind of stuff that happened, that’s not in any way intelligent, humorous or a statement of endearment to a teacher.”

But if complaints from staff, parents and students keep coming in about lesser pranks, the creativity and essence of pranks will eventually disappear into a cloud of regulations, restrictions and maybe even liability forms. Creative and harmless pranks will never be contemplated in fear of consequences, such as losing Lawn Day or prohibition from going on Senior Project.

During my Senior Week, I don’t want to see the same prank that I’ve already seen eight times. I don’t want to see class wars. I don’t want to hear complaints about pranks that are meant to be mischievous. I don’t want to make future seniors suffer because of my class’s inability to be creative, undisruptive and harmless at the same time.

I want my class to be remembered as the class that did something neat, not the class that accidently killed animals in an attempt to be funny.

If freshmen, sophomores and juniors can respect that Senior Week is for seniors, if staff can be good-humored for one week out of the entire school year, and if seniors can devise imaginative pranks with an understanding that school is still going on, then senior pranks will actually be enjoyable. We’ll actually see something clever and original.

Otherwise, the best we’ll see during future Senior Weeks?  Certainly not any missing tape dispensers. We wouldn’t want any controversy, now would we?