By Jordan Freisleben

Administrators gave “a disappointed lecture” to students from two prom limos about alcohol and drug use at school functions after contraband was discovered in those limos, one of the students in attendance said.

The obligatory meeting was held Friday afternoon in Feldman-Horn gallery with Director of Student Affairs Jordan Church, Head of Upper School Harry Salamandra, and Chaplain Father J. Young.

The administration was notified of the contraband by one of the limo drivers.

Among the items found were “huge amounts of alcohol, marijuana and marijuana-related stuff from prescription places, such as lollipops and brownies,” according to a school authority who wished to remain anonymous.

From 3 to 7 p.m. tomorrow, the students from the limos will be required to clean the insides and outsides of the yellow school buses, school suburbans and school maintenance vehicles.

“I feel bad that the school has to deal with this,” a student, who wished to remain anonymous, said. “But I feel like we were made scapegoats because we were the only ones to get caught when a dozen other limos had just as much if not more stuff than we had.”

Another student, who also wished to remain anonymous, believes that the school’s response was justified.

“I think we deserved the punishment,” she said. “It’s symbolic of how the administration felt about the situation. The kids involved tarnished Harvard-Westlake. By making us clean and detail [the vehicles], it’s an attempt to remedy the things we did.”

Young acknowledged that there were probably other limos containing contraband.

“It wouldn’t surprise me if there were other limos,” he said. “But these [two limos] were the ones that were brought to our attention.”

The administration gave students from the limos the option of signing a document exonerating them from blame, Young said.

“The sheet actually says ‘I’ve examined my conscience and I don’t feel like I’ve had any part of this,’” he said. “It was an alternative to interviewing kids separately to see who was guiltier than the next person, because we realize that not everyone shared equal responsibility.”

A student from one limo feels that every passenger was in some way culpable.

“There’s a wide broad spectrum of who was involved and who did what,” the student said. “But everyone has some kind of responsibility whether it’s massive or miniscule.”

An emergency room doctor will also speak with the students and their parents about the dangers of alcohol poisoning and the potentially deadly effects of consuming alcohol in the amount in which it was found in the limos.

“Our fear was that with the relatively small amount of students consuming so much alcohol, there would have definitely been trips to the hospital,” Young said.

The number of students involved makes Young believe that this is the most serious prom offense he has encountered.