Principal Cancels Classes, Sues Over MySpace Prank

Earnest writes "A prank MySpace page has led to a barrage of lawsuits and the misuse of school resources as the principal targeted by the pranksters attempted to find the perpetrators. In 2005, students at Hickory High School in Pennsylvania created a fake MySpace profile of principal Eric Trosch. As a result, the school's IT staff spent about 25 percent of his work time dealing with the issue and finding the culprits. That's not all. 'Trosch kept at it, even taking measures that led to the "cancellation of computer programming classes as well as usage of computers for research for class projects." Now the basic educational mission of the school was being compromised in order to keep students from visiting these profiles during school hours (students were still free to look at the profiles from home, of course).'"

Remember..

[C0R1D4N]

Remember the good ol' days when people would just burn effigies of those they didn't like?

Now why would students do that?

[FredDC]

The principal seems to be such a nice guy! *rolls eyes*

He was probably just pissed because someone managed to create a page about him on myspace, while he had been desperately trying to do the same but couldn't fit his ego onto the page...

Re:Now why would students do that?

[richlv]

and, if normally some of the students would have seen the page, now whole world will see it. nicely done, eric !

Re:Something doo economics. Anyone? Anyone?

[repvik]

Your comment, combined with the nugget in the bottom right corner got me laughing me ass off.
Screenshot [kynisk.com]

Oh noes!

[FooBarWidget]

Quick! Tell the principle to sign up for ReputationDefender.com [slashdot.org]!

Re:Remember..

[Tim Browse]

Yes.

I don't understand...they say you're not allowed to have pinatas that look like real people, but in Mexico, we do it all the time.

Re:Remember..

[arivanov]

Well...

We used to lift cars on top of 4 garbage bins (of the older metal cylindrical variety). Worked a treat. An old Skoda, Fiat or ZAZ weight under 600 kg so all it took was 10+ determined students and 20 seconds. So the teacher comes out and starts swearing not knowing what to do. The car is perched precariously 1m from the ground and there is no way to get it down without either negotiating with the students (and trusting them that they do not "unintentionally" drop it) or calling in heavy lifting equipment.

A funnier version of the same prank used to be done in a couple of schools which were located in old turn of the century buildings will proper 6+m wide main staircases and corridors. I know of at least 2 cases where the principal walked out of his office on the second floor to stumble into his skoda "parked" in the corridor.

And nowdays... Myspace... whimps...

Re:Remember..

[lucabrasi999]

We used to lift cars on top of 4 garbage bins

That's nothing. At my high school, we lifted the body of a 1970s era VW Beetle onto the roof of the one-story school! Someone also figured out a way to put steel-belted car tires over the top of the street lights in the parking lot. As a result, the tires were left surrounding the bottom of the street-light pole. Since the tires were steel-belted, you couldn't easily cut them. The school had to bring a crane in to lift the tires back up over the top of the pole.

And, I had to walk to school. Uphill. BOTH ways. Through snow so deep it covered the top of my head.

Re:Too sensitive....

[kv9]

won't anyone think of the principals?

Re:Remember..

[Ihlosi]

We used to lift cars on top of 4 garbage bins (of the older metal cylindrical variety). Worked a treat. An old Skoda, Fiat or ZAZ weight under 600 kg

Didn't you read TFA ? This is America. You're lucky that the students don't weigh 600 kg (yet), and if a car weighs only four times that, it's considered too light and therefore unsafe.

Re:Remember..

[bossesjoe]

Our Principal used to have this neat Porsche 911 Turbo that he was really proud of. One day we placed an add for it in the local paper, along with providing all the phone extensions, even his office, and address for the school. The best part was we set the price at $12,500 and listed the mileage as 10K, for a two year old Porsche 911 Turbo. The school was swamped the next day with people at the office and bombarding the phone lines trying to get this car, we even had about twenty guys walking around the parking lot checking out the car.

Re:Now why would students do that?

[JonathanR]

If I was the Principal, I'd have asked the IT Manager to sniff the myspace user password, and then edited and added all sorts of depraved photoshopped images to the site. But perhaps that's why I'm not the Principal.

Re:Remember..

[Anonymous Coward]

You have 1m high sidewalks? Amazing!

Re:Remember..

[dr_dank]

As long as you remembered to eat a Mentos and smile before hand, you'll get away scot-free.

Re:Remember..when the principal was the adult?

[Strilanc]

The proper thing to do here is:
- Ask myspace to take the page down
- Secretly install keyloggers in the school computers, get the culprit's myspace account, and put furry porn on it

You guys are wimps.

[Pig Hogger]

50 years ago, when my father was in military college, they once went to the nearby airfield and brought in (by hand!!!) a DC-3 plane and set it in the middle of the main garden. The stunt includes flattenning a chain-link fence between the airfield and the garden. Also, a staff seargent who was overly fond of his Morris Mini Cooper often found it perched on top of the decorative fountain...

Re:Remember..

[UltraAyla]

He has three friends? Amazing!

Re:Remember..

[EatHam]

Three words and a sign is all you need.

Fill Dirt Wanted

Re:Remember..

[necrognome]

Actually your comment was hilarious, so now I'm posting to unmod my "Overrated" that should have been "Funny". Sigh. Where is the f$cking "unmod" button with the new whizbang posting system!

Re:Remember..

[Kabuthunk]

Perhaps a bit more advanced version of that took place in the University of Manitoba once. The Mechanical Engineering department literally took a prof's car apart and reassembled it in his office when it was left in the lot. Good luck getting THAT out anytime soon :P

Re:Remember..when the principal was the adult?

[iminplaya]

If this guy was the President of the United States he'd probably have decalred martial law and then used the Secret Service and the National Guard to conduct a manhunt for the guy who made fun of him.

Beaten to the punch [flickr.com].