GDS parents received a startling email claiming the entire college counseling department would leave GDS at the end of the school year. The message, which appeared to be an official school announcement, caused responses from students, faculty and parents.
The email, which was a senior prank, was formulated using similar formatting, colors and wording to official emails from GDS and appeared to be signed by Assistant Principal for Academics Khalid Bashir, High School Principal Yom Fox and Head of School Russell Shaw. The email was sent at 8:00 a.m. on Tuesday, April 29 from the address “gds@myschoolemails.org,” which is similar to the real email that sends announcements from the administration, “gds@myschoolemails.com.”
At 8:57 a.m., Director of Information Technology Walid Nazari sent an email to the student body regarding the message. “We’re writing to remind everyone that impersonating the school or any of its officials via email is strictly prohibited,” Nazari said. Nazari added that sending the email had legal implications and could result in disciplinary action against the sender.
At 9:31 a.m. that same day, parents received an email from the real High School Office email address, emphasizing that the college counseling team was not leaving and explaining that the email “was intended as a joke – [sic]likely authored by our seniors.” The email was signed by Fox and Shaw.
Sophomore parent Shawn Cole initially thought the departure of the entire college counseling team was unusual. “I know it can be a hard job to be a college counselor at a private school, but it seemed unusual that all the counselors would leave at the same time,” Cole said. He later learned that the email was fake from Fox and Shaw’s email. “Given that some people maybe take college admissions way too seriously, this was a funny thing to send out,” he said.
As of the publication of this article, the senior class had not sustained any serious disciplinary action. However, 12th grade dean Marjorie Hale spoke to the seniors at a class meeting during lunch on Tuesday. “Marjorie just told us to stop sending emails and then also how clean-up would work, but there wasn’t any big punishment or anything,” senior Michael Dobbs said. “At the end of the day, it’s a senior prank. ”
When the class meeting ended, seniors rushed out to the high school field to attend a dramatic wedding between seniors Eli Zucker and Henry Cohen. The wedding ended abruptly after senior Shanwai Lin objected to the union and staged a fight with Cohen.
Junior Alec Donath said he initially believed the prank. “I thought [the email] was real for like two minutes, until I saw Khalid [Bashir] walking down the hallway laughing,” Donath said. “I thought the email was hilarious.”
“I thought it was pretty awesome how many faculty members were just laughing at it and how creative we were,” senior Sawyer Massey said. “But I also understand how some were upset.”
Junior parent Vaishali Udupa said she was “initially surprised but also skeptical” about the email about the college counseling office, partially because her son had mentioned senior prank day to her. Udupa said she reached out to her son’s friends’ parents asking whether the email was real, and a member of the P.S.A. informed her that the email was not real—Udupa said she did not receive Fox and Shaw’s email clarifying that the email was fake, though she said her husband did. Udupa said she was impressed by the email. “The fact that the seniors came up with this, spent the time to look through the directory, come up with the emails and create a fake account—it was quite well done,” Udupa said.
The fake email wasn’t even supposed to be the main prank of the day.
“We had planned and talked to many people about putting a golf cart in the building,” Massey said. “We were going to put it in on the second floor after thirty minutes of letting it sit outside, so there aren’t any carbon emissions.” Carbon emissions in a closed building is very dangerous and can cause health complications for students and faculty. The seniors were going to bring the golf cart in though the 42nd Street doors on the second floor. He said the seniors had a pump to drain the gas from the cart and were careful to ensure that there would be plenty of space around the cart for students with disabilities to navigate the halls.
At 5:39 p.m. on Monday, April 28, the senior class received an email from Fox, Assistant Principal for School Life Quinn Killy, Hale, Chief Financial Officer Rahel Rosner and Director of Operations and Innovation Tim Lyons that said bringing the cart into the building was prohibited. “Bringing a car (operational or not) or other motorized vehicle into the school is prohibited,” the email said. “Students involved may face disciplinary consequences, including a potential impact on participation in senior events and graduation.”
Massey said he was disappointed that the administration told the seniors the golf cart prank was not allowed and threatened disciplinary action to those who participated in the prank because seniors had already set up the golf cart the night before. “But we had other tricks up our sleeve and pulled through to create another successful prank day,” Massey said.
Multiple seniors greeted students with a car wash that morning. Seniors Evelyn Chen and Koen Yu hosted a bar with drinks titled the “Tenley Temple,” a play on the drink “Shirley Temple,” and the “Quinn Killy,” made of lemonade and iced tea. Seniors hid alarm clocks that rang throughout the day in the ceiling panels in classrooms, study rooms, the proctoring room, the library and the halls.
“The car was supposed to be the main prank, but when that got shut down, the email kind of became the star, and, honestly, I’m kind of glad it did. It was pretty fun,” Dobbs said.