Mount Si High School conducted numerous homecoming activities during the week of Oct. 16. Traditional activities included decorated hallways, dress-up days, lunch games and royalty selection. There is a friendly competition between the classes. On Thursday, Oct. 19, the gym was packed with students and staff anticipating the short skit assembly.

Each grade level and the staff creates skits based on the homecoming theme, and we all enjoy some humor and laughs. Unfortunately, this year several skits were offensive with emotionally charged topics and jokes that were performed in poor taste.

No one is proud of what happened and we want to ensure that it is never repeated. We believe the students involved did not intend to offend students or staff. We accept responsibility for not checking the content of the offensive skits before they were presented to the student-body. We have been examining our guidelines and procedures. The class advisors and administrators are developing clearer expectations for future assemblies.

In the numerous e-mails that circulated through the staff, one stated: “This is an important and ongoing respect and sensitivity issue in our society and one that is often blurred and misguided within the staging of stand-up humor and comedy. If we choose to give students independent license to ‘create’ skits, then it is not surprising to me that they will continue to explore, develop and enact themes related to gender and race identity (developmentally these are themes very often on their minds). I might add that there is still prevalent confusion within the youth culture concerning what may be appropriate or inappropriate messages related to gender and race. What we saw on Thursday, they have also witnessed in the adult culture (just turn on the TV and see for yourself).”

We are committed to providing the very best opportunities for our students. Clearly we missed the mark by not providing the appropriate level of oversight and direction for this event. We are going to move forward, learn from our past and take action to correct our mistakes.

Randy W. Taylor, principal

Beth Castle, assistant

principal/activities director

Mount Si High School

Snoqualmie