Red plastic cups, liquor bottles and heaps of garbage were dumped across three blocks of shoreline Tuesday in South Beach after high school students said their classmates made a mess during an annual senior “skip day.”
Videos and photos posted on social media showed garbage being swept into the ocean and covering a large stretch of sand at South Pointe Beach. Volunteers spent hours cleaning up the garbage, and some students who attended chastised their classmates for trashing the environment — and their high school tradition.
“Every tide that came in was taking out the trash,” said Sophie Ringel, founder of Clean Miami Beach, a group that organizes beach cleanups.
High school senior Nicole Piedra, 18, said students from across Miami-Dade County attended the skip day in South Beach. Piedra, a student at Arthur and Polly Mays Conservatory of the Arts, said she and her classmates made sure not to leave trash behind but others in the crowd did not.
“Honestly I felt angry,” Piedra told the Miami Herald in an Instagram message. “I didn’t see anyone pick up after themselves and it’s only going to hurt the animals and the environment.”
Piedra shared photos and videos of the trash on Instagram telling seniors to “do better.”
Another high school senior, who identified herself as Rosa, told the Herald that it’s a tradition for Miami-Dade students to skip school on March 1 — National Pancake Day.
The 18-year-old Biotech Senior High School student said it was wrong for other students to trash the beach. Before she went, she and her friends came up with an idea to clean up “every bit of trash that was ours or even in our area to help clean up.”
“In my opinion all that was left was nasty and really disrespectful, especially since we are given the opportunity to go ahead and do all the things we did without consequences,” she wrote in an Instagram message.
Ringel, of Clean Miami Beach, said she first noticed South Pointe Beach being used as a “skip day” hangout last year but the tradition was also documented on social media in 2020. An article published in 2020 by the Palmetto Panther, a school newspaper for Miami Palmetto Senior High School, describes senior skip day as a controversial tradition that usually involves going to South Beach and eating free pancakes at IHOP.
Ringel said South Pointe Beach has become the “preferred location to spend senior skip day and to trash it.” She said the city should better enforce its anti-litter laws, perhaps by instructing lifeguards to stop people from leaving trash on the beach as it happens.
Miami Beach city spokeswoman Melissa Berthier said Miami-Dade County is “responsible for the daily cleaning activities on the beach.”
“While we value the efforts of the county, we recognize that the level of service offered by them is sometimes insufficient,” she said.
Berthier said city staff helps with cleaning as needed, and monitors the beach to try to respond to “events similar to what has been reported as soon and early as possible.”
She said the city made sure Miami-Dade emptied the trash bins and sifted the beach sand early Wednesday morning.
“Late yesterday, we responded after crowds dissipated and this 3 block area of the beach was cleaned,” she said. “We are very grateful for the volunteers who helped.”
This story was originally published March 2, 2022 4:03 PM.
Martin Vassolo covers the politics and government of Miami Beach for the Miami Herald. He began working for the Herald in January 2018 after attending the University of Florida, where he served as the editor-in-chief of The Independent Florida Alligator. Previously, he was a general assignment reporter on the Herald’s metro desk and a political reporting intern.
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