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Hernando Today

Sex Ed Prank Infuriates Parents

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By LINNEA BROWN

Hernando Today

Published: June 2, 2008

BROOKSVILLE - The phones at Hernando High School have been ringing off the hook with irate calls from parents who received an unusually sly prank letter in the mail over the weekend.
An alleged senior class prank, the letters — which were printed on official school letterhead and stamped with the school's automated postage machine — were sent specifically to parents of sophomores at the school, using address labels taken from the school's computer database.
They state that sex education classes will no longer be offered at the Brooksville school. Enclosed in each letter was a wrapped condom and encouragement for parents to "take on the responsibility of teaching their children about safe sex."
Principal Betty Harper said administrators launched an investigation immediately upon hearing from parents on Friday, when the letters began arriving in mailboxes.
"We are extremely upset and concerned that something like (this) went out on old letterhead and is disrupting the community in the way that it has," she said. "We do apologize to the community and anyone who has received those letters."
The letter retains a serious tone and fictitious contact names — all thinly-veiled sexual innuendoes — and invites parents to call the school and ask for them.
It reads:
"…After numerous years of educating students about the principles of benefits of abstinence we have found it to be unsuccessful. Our very own Little Leopard Land is overflowing with little leopard cubs. Obviously, our attempts have proved futile. Let's be honest, ALL of our students are sexually active."
Harper said she believes many of the parents took the letter seriously, until they read the last paragraph containing the fictitious names.
The names were similar to those used in the Austin Powers movies.
"We're very concerned that someone would compromise the usage of our letterhead and use our postage meter to send (these letters) to parents," she said.
While the letterhead was a style no longer used by the school, administrators are still investigating how the perpetrators obtained access to the letterhead, students' home addresses and the postage machine in the school's office.
"We will proceed with disciplinary measures once our investigation is complete," she said.
The exact number of parents who received the letter was also not known. However, anything stamped by the school's postage meter would have been billed to the school, and administrators expect to know more by Wednesday, Harper said.
"We know it was a fake letter and that it did not come from administration or anyone employed here at Hernando High," she said.
Students confirmed that it was an annual senior prank, organized by members of the school's graduating class.
Sophomore Chris Nyholm, 16, said he had heard about the prank when it was in discussion stages, but didn't realize the seniors had actually gone through with it.
As of Monday afternoon, he didn't think his parents had received a letter yet.
"I heard they were going to send out letters in the mail that sex education had been cancelled and put condoms in the (envelopes)," he said. "I heard it got cancelled, but apparently not."
"They actually stole that prank off a radio show," Chris added. "It wasn't very original."
Harper acknowledged that seniors sometimes pull an end-of-the-year prank, but said it does not occur every year and that she has never seen one of this magnitude.

Reporter Linnea Brown can be reached at 352-544-5289 or lbrown@hernandotoday.com.

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