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But if a swing not well attached to the roof can fall on students’ head the next morning. Then there will be lawsuit.</p>
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<p>A swing’s not going to <em>be</em> attached to a roof. Wooden swing sets are not attached to the ground, either. School roofs are nearly universally flat. These kids probably didn’t build the swing right up next to the edge of the roof. Anything falling on someone’s head as a result of the prank is extraordinarily unlikely. They made sure that there was a very low risk of anything bad happening, and I’d say that they didn’t do anything that was technically dangerous-- just perceptionally dangerous.</p>
<p>Was it stupid? Well, yeah. Along the lines of what ellemenope said, it’s a perfectly safe prank that wouldn’t hurt anybody, but if I were in their shoes I still wouldn’t have done it. The academic repercussions due to failure would’ve been too high a consequence to suffer because of the perceived threat.</p>
<p>As you can tell from my posts, I do not believe in pranks. But then what else can you expect from someone whose favorite saying to her kids is–“You try to be cute and someone gets hurt.”</p>
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<p>Those kids set a high bar for the kids following the to meet or exceed–what a wonderful example of something CONSTRUCTIVE and “giving back.”</p>
<p>aibarr - You have not seen old classrooms that collapsed because school districts did not have enough money to rebuild. But that’s not the whole point. Who is repsonsible for accidents if kids make mistakes? The HS kids are not always wise.</p>
<p>Here is an example:
<a href=“http://www.wral.com/lifestyles/family/blogpost/5251150/[/url]”>http://www.wral.com/lifestyles/family/blogpost/5251150/</a></p>
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<p>I design buildings and investigate structural collapses for a living… I don’t think there’s been an unprecedented structural collapse of a school roof in the United States for years… In recent memory, there were school collapses in Haiti, China, Russia, Pakistan, Turkey, Italy, and India, and I think a drainage grate collapsed in New York. No school collapses in the USA since Loma Prieta, I don’t think. Let me know if I’m mistaken, though.</p>
<p>Pranks like that are not a good idea. Kids can be idiots. If they’re over 18, they can be idiots and be held liable for it. If they’re on school property and they’re idiots, the school can be held liable for it. If they’re idiots and the school is held liable for it, then the school has every right to go after the kids for being idiots.</p>
<p>I’m not saying to go out and play on roofs, or set things on fire, or throw rocks at cars. I’m just saying that the engineering likelihood of something going wrong in the scenario described in the first post was statistically unlikely, given reasonable judgment.</p>
<p>aibarr - Here are some:</p>
<p>1) [Several</a> people hurt after roof collapse at North Orange County Regional Occupational Program Education Center in Orange County, Calif. - 12/15/08 - Los Angeles-Southern California-LA Breaking News, Weather, Traffic, Sports - abc7.com](<a href=“http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/local/orange_county&id=6556474]Several”>http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/local/orange_county&id=6556474)</p>
<p>2) [NEW</a> VIDEO: West Valley school roof collapse caught on tape - Phoenix Arizona news, breaking news, local news, weather radar, traffic from ABC15 News | ABC15.com](<a href=“http://www.abc15.com/content/news/phoenixmetro/south/story/NEW-VIDEO-West-Valley-school-roof-collapse-caught/gJMuQStpxUyfYRw6ioh-VA.cspx]NEW”>http://www.abc15.com/content/news/phoenixmetro/south/story/NEW-VIDEO-West-Valley-school-roof-collapse-caught/gJMuQStpxUyfYRw6ioh-VA.cspx)</p>
<p>3) [Renovations</a> created stress that caused Waggoner school roof collapse|Wrangler News](<a href=“http://www.wranglernews.com/2009/05/29/renovations-created-stress-that-caused-waggoner-school-roof-collapse/]Renovations”>Renovations created stress that caused Waggoner school roof collapse - Wrangler News)</p>
<p>4) [Education</a> Week: N.Y. School Roof Collapse Prompts Warning](<a href=“Education Week - K-12 education news and information”>Education Week - K-12 education news and information)</p>
<p>Also, a lot of schools don’t have flat roofs. The ones you design use the new building codes.</p>
<p>Wow. I’m concerned that I hadn’t heard about any of those. I haven’t seen anything in the journals, hadn’t heard anything through my work contacts, hadn’t seen anything. It’s alarming that structural collapses no longer get the attention of mainstream media unless anybody is killed. I shouldn’t be surprised anymore… There are a couple of total collapses that I worked on that got no press coverage whatsoever, but I never imagined that partial collapses of schools wouldn’t hit the AP like a wildfire. My apologies. That’s alarming.</p>
<p>I was pretty surprised to see those too, because aibarr is correct, normally roofs are designed to take plenty of extra weight. They need to be able to take snow drifts (in our climate) as well as the workers on the roof. I learned structures from a guy who had great stories about buildings of his that didn’t fail despite what was done to them. (The best was an MIT prank I believe - the building had a convex roof with a central drain. The kids plugged the drain so that it became a swimming pool…)</p>
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<p>My boss enjoys recounting the story of when he got a frantic call from the government during Tropical Storm Allison asking whether they could land a Blackhawk helicopter on the roof of the hospital he’d designed. And… um… could you please let us know really quickly, because we’re running out of fuel.</p>
<p>The way he tells it, his calculator was nearly in flames three minutes later, but he was able to tell them that if they spanned <em>this</em> beam and <em>this</em> beam, that they could land it safely, but don’t put it down like they’re getting shot at!!</p>
<p>Buildings in general are over-designed and under-maintained. The problem arises when the lack of maintenance exceeds the amount by which the structure was over-designed.</p>
<p>undermaintained I agree
[Melting</a> snow causes Fred Meyer roof to collapse | Local News | kgw.com | News for Portland Oregon and SW Washington](<a href=“http://www.kgw.com/news-local/stories/kgw_122708_news_freddies_roof_collapse.10f61dd9.html]Melting”>http://www.kgw.com/news-local/stories/kgw_122708_news_freddies_roof_collapse.10f61dd9.html)</p>
<p>[Local</a> News | Snow causes roof collapse at Olympia high school | Seattle Times Newspaper](<a href=“http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008561735_webcollapse26m.html]Local”>http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008561735_webcollapse26m.html)</p>
<p>For future reference folks- snow is frozen water- it is heavy!</p>