We’re usually proud of our class, but today’s defacing of Senior Country filled us with disappointment.

Though construction is not an ideal situation, we are not the only ones who have to deal with changes. The way in which we handled this transitional period today reflected poorly on our grade as a whole. We understand that only a small percentage of our class partook in this embarrassingly disrespectful behavior, but the actions of a small group still affect all 142 of us.

We, as a senior class, have been given numerous privileges: the Quad, the mural, Senior Tea, Senior Lot, skip days, Senior Country, senior sign-outs. The administration has given us their trust and their only condition is that we respect our space. They asked very little of us, yet we delivered even less.

We received news deserving of cheers in today’s class meeting; few people expected to hear that we would retain Senior Lot all year and that our last day of the cafeteria would not coincide with the last day of Senior Country, which officially closes Feb. 28. Even fewer people expected the administrators to be our primary advocates. We want to thank those in the administration who championed our cause. Today showed that we may have been undeserving of that effort.

This isn’t just about paint on a wall. After the administrators left W205, Head Prefect Sira Ntagha pointed out that we failed to uphold the reputation of our class and the promise she made on our behalf. Even after she bravely put herself in front of the entire grade, even after she asked for our cooperation in respecting Senior Country, the disruptive behavior persisted. The continued defacing of Senior Country following the meeting was disrespectful to our school, to Sira and to the administration.

We should remember that the current juniors are losing so much more than we are; they are the grade that truly has to sacrifice for construction, yet we don’t see such juvenile behavior from them.
Some in our grade have stepped up. To those who made posters to cover the drawings on the walls of Senior Country and volunteered to paint over the graffiti tomorrow: thank you for your attempts to redeem the Class of 2014.

Ultimately, we don’t own Senior Country. We are merely borrowing it, inheriting this privilege from past classes. Other divisions of the school use Senior Country, from class pictures to Admissions events. Senior parents will serve Tea for the next two weeks in Senior Country as well.

Many of us are legally adults, and we understandably expect to be treated as such. But part of being an adult is putting yourself in other people’s shoes and making sacrifices. Like it or not, it’s time for us to grow up.