WINNER - Most Subversive: Ed Kaponer, Bluffton

Teaching in New York City always has been challenging, and one way of coping was to play an occasional prank on one's colleagues, or better yet, one's supervisors. One year, as April 1 approached, I devised a prank that would surely be appreciated by fellow staff members and probably less so by the school's newbie principal.

As teachers entered the office to sign in on the morning of April 1, they were greeted by an official-looking memo typed on school stationary informing several specific staff members that in accordance with a recent UFT-Board of Education agreement regarding a pilot program dealing with random drug testing, the below-named individuals were to avail themselves of one of the cups located on the counter next to the memo, retire to the nearby staff restroom, and provide a sample which was to be placed on the principal's desk.

While the school secretaries busied themselves with various morning routines, I slipped into the principal's office and placed several cups brimming with ginger ale on the principal's desk. The principal was conveniently attending a meeting at the district office that morning. Sometime later that morning, a schoolwide announcement by the principal left almost everyone in the school wondering why the principal felt it necessary to inform the entire staff and student body plus any parents who happened to be in the building at the time that the penalty for unauthorized use of official school stationery would be quite severe. Another trying day at PS 5 seemed a little more tolerable for at least one soon-to-be-retiring teacher that April 1.