Many of life's biggest scandals happen at school. By nature, the school environment is just a perfect birthing ground for controversies—put a bunch of teenagers in a building and you're bound to have some sort of drama. Students took to online forums to share the most memorable event that happened at their schools, and their stories did not disappoint. Read on for some juicy tales:
#1 The Escapee
A woman with severe medical issues (both physical and mental deficiencies) snuck away from her group home and hid in the broom closet of our cafeteria for two days. She ate all of our garlic bread, took someone’s jacket, and walked out 36 hours later. This was in 2007, so we didn’t have cameras or anything and no one saw her go in or out. They only knew she was there because the jacket had the name of the high school and when she was found she straight up told the police she had been hiding in there for two days. The group home said she had been missing for roughly a day and a half.
#2 Unfair Grading
This actually came out during my last semester there, but it had been happening for years. One of the English teachers had been showing favoritism to a few select students every year. Most were football players. It got really weird. When I had her class, it wouldn’t be out of place if a student from another class asked to go to the bathroom and just went to her room to see her.
One day, some kid brought her a drink from McDonald’s because he was late for school and got breakfast. It only came out because there was this one girl who was in an argument with her for some reason and said something along the lines of, “That’s why you grade your students unfairly!” And the whole incident got brought up to the office and they interviewed everyone.
#3 Friday Threats
It was in 2007. My high school had a string of threats. There was a bathroom where no cameras could see who went in or out, and someone wrote in Sharpie across one of the stall doors: "There's a threat in the school" with that day's date. The school was evacuated, and we all went home. For the next few months, there was a threat seemingly every Friday. We'd be in the middle of the first or second period, then we'd all go home. After we missed enough days, we all had to come in on several Saturdays, and the threats stopped.
#4 On Full Display
We had a bunch of threats around the same time, but they caught the guy doing it. I guess he had a couple of tests he didn't want to do so he used those threats to force an evacuation and get extra time. The school held a special assembly just for the sole purpose of making him apologize in front of the whole school... he cried the entire time.
#5 Controlled Detonation
At my school, a kid getting off the hockey bus after school hours forgot his backpack by the curb and went home. There was a basketball game going on in the gym and somebody walking around reported a suspicious bag in front of the school. The Feds got called (because of a string of recent threats at the school) and they detected "electronics" inside the bag (his calculator). They decided the best course of action was an immediately controlled detonation... without warning anybody in the gym first. People screamed and hit the deck when it went off thinking the school was getting attacked. The scorch mark was on the curb for weeks.
#6 Fair Warning
We had several threats at our high school, I think maybe like three or four? They sent us home the first time. After that, they'd evacuate us to other buildings nearby where we would wait until the police finished searching the school. Then, one morning, they made an announcement over the PA that if we had to miss any more school because of threats they'd tack days onto the end of the school year and the threats stopped.
#7 Power Imbalance
In my senior year, one of the popular football players lost his life while he was driving under the influence. It was obviously big news on campus and just a few days after, the school had this giant memorial on our football field dedicated to talking about how great of a guy he was and how he'll be dearly missed. He also got like five consecutive pages in our yearbook dedicated to him. But not long before his death, a less popular band student had also lost his life and his death didn't receive nearly as much coverage. He didn't get a giant memorial and he didn't get mentioned in our yearbook.
#8 The Double Standard
I saw this kind of double standard at my high school too. When a popular, good looking person lost his or her life, people flipped. I felt awful for that student but it was unbelievably frustrating to see the comments people were writing. Because this person was good looking and popular, that fact was continuously repeated and people couldn’t fathom how they could be dead. Not even a fraction of this attention was given to previous students who had lost their lives. It’s depression. Depression doesn’t know faces or status.
#9 Hiding The Spill
My chemistry teacher spilled liquid mercury in the lab at my high school. She tried to clean it up herself which only further contaminated the lab and didn't tell anyone about the spill. She was arrested and it cost the school $60K to have it cleaned up. I don't know what happened regarding her charges. Good thing she didn't make us clean it up with index cards or something.
#10 The Teacher's Secret
In my sophomore year of high school, the gym teacher's brother got hired as a computer teacher. He was a nice guy; not as much as his brother, but still. Two thirds through the year, he just vanished and most of the teachers didn't want to talk about it. Eventually, it got out that when he was in college, the computer teacher got into a barroom brawl. During the brawl, he took a pool ball, put it inside of a sock, swung it around, and smashed a guy in the head with it. The guy who got hit had permanent brain damage. The school found out mid-way through the year and that is why they let him go.
#11 Library Arsonist
Oh, I forgot all about the student crime. In middle school, a kid broke in one night to the building with the library. He piled up a bunch of books and set them on fire. Plus he stole some stuff. One of the things he stole was a T-shirt from a fundraiser display. He got busted because he wore the shirt—a shirt no one else would have. Maybe his English teacher made him read Fahrenheit 451 and it inspired him in the wrong way.
#12 Bless The Nurses
We currently have a lawsuit against our district. The nurses are claiming harassment against an intermediate principal, and the district refused to step in. Apparently the nurses caught him having an affair and told his wife. He pinned one against a wall and demanded to see her phone. Bless those nurses if it was true. I hope they all get the justice they deserve.
#13 The Ungrateful Coach
Not that juicy, but the basketball coach was a teacher who clearly hated working with teens like us, so some of us did some investigating on how he came to be employed at the school. Turns out, he had been a basketball coach for one of the top university teams in the country just five blocks away from our school, but he violated ethics codes by playing players who were academically unable to play and they had evidence of him talking to professors about their grades. He got sacked and our high school jumped at the opportunity to pick up a coach banned from university leagues. Of course, he'd have to run gym class and teach 13-year-olds about their changing bodies as well... The guy really lucked out.
#14 Unsolved Hate Crime
The biggest scandal there ever was in my school was on the news. A student left a hate note on a teacher's desk. It basically said that he should be ashamed of being gay and that he shouldn't be allowed in a school. Really bad stuff... The reporters were all over the school. The teacher filed a report to the cops but they were never able to catch the one who did it. This one is just really sad. Think about the embarrassment and heartbreak this teacher felt.
#15 Just A Few
The high school math teacher got a DUI on a tractor and was fired. The PE and CS teacher had an affair while they were both married to other people. They eventually both divorced and ended up marrying each other. The accounting teacher married a student about a week after she graduated. The rumor was that they were already together when she was 16 and she was pregnant before graduation as well by the teacher.
#16 Come Clean
On the day ahead of a huge event that was going to happen in the auditorium of our school, someone destroyed the audio equipment and it ended up not working anymore. The principal announced that anyone who was a witness and who could tell them who the culprit was would receive $500 from the school. Turns out it was someone from our neighboring class and probably 8 to 10 guys from that class went into the principal's office to rat him out and receive the money.
Just that the majority of them who went there were just claiming to have witnessed it to receive money as well. The guy got expelled from school and had to pay for new audio equipment which was probably at least around $3000 to $4000. I don't know whether everyone who ratted him out ended up receiving the $500 or not.
#17 A Horrible Experience
My ex-boyfriend didn’t delete the intimate photo he promised to delete and he showed it to everyone whether they wanted to see it or not. I was called mean names during all of my remaining four or five school years. Just to clarify, he took the picture while I was sleeping. I did not know it about until he broke off with me, because he wanted to rub it in my face I guess.
#18 The Heroic Principal
A kid was trying to get initiated into a bad group of guys. Part of this involved committing a serious act of violence, so he brought a dangerous item to school and tried to harm the school resource officer. The principal tackled him the second he saw him pull out the item. Everybody hated the principal until that day. We were on CNN that night.
#19 Losing A Twin
A bit late to the party, but in my high school we had six losses of life over the course of three years. If I remember correctly, there was one week that three students lost their lives; two of them within 24 hours of each other. Our principal ended up retiring because of it. One of those was a friend of mine who had been sad over the summer. The toughest part about it was that he had an identical twin.
#20 A Guilty Pleasure
This was in the late-'80s in a pretty conservative town in the south. The janitor went into the choir room at my high school and saw that a camcorder was set up on a tripod. He thought it was odd because stuff like that was supposed to be locked up in the AV room when not in use. He rewound it a bit and watched it. Turns out, the uber Christian choir director had filmed himself dancing in front of the camera while wearing woman's clothes. He was gone within the week.
#21 Stealing From The Kids
When I was in middle school over 14 years ago, our principal got arrested during class time for stealing kids Adderall. this was back when if you took medicine, you had to go to the office to have it given to you. Parents were wondering why their kids' meds were running out before the script ended when it was being given to their kids by the staff. They installed cameras without his knowledge and caught him.
#22 Blocking The Truth
To run for student office, you had to get a petition signed by a certain number of people. There was a kid running who was liked pretty well among the school and was the only returning cabinet member. He was considered the overwhelming favorite for ASB president. However, the teacher in charge of overseeing ASB disqualified his candidacy because some of his signatures weren’t legible. This is the first time something like this happened. The girl he was supposed to run against was that teacher's favorite student. I ended up writing an article for the school paper about the situation and several other similar situations that this teacher was involved in. It was blocked from being published.
#23 Just Like Matilda
The french teacher kicked a girl that didn't leave his classroom fast enough. I was in the class during the incident. About two weeks in, nothing was seemingly happening. Students were questioned, and a warning was given, but not much else. But one faithful day the french teacher entered the lunch hall and some kids started booing him. Quickly, others started to pitch in, and soon enough he had 1400 highschool kids booing him and throwing stuff at him. It was almost like the ending of Matilda but even grander.
#24 Burning Bushes
Not me but my dad—he and his friend were screwing around with firecrackers and matches in the bushes of their high school because Lord knows why. Needless to say, a half-hour went by, and all the bushes surrounding the school were on fire. Fire trucks came and put out the fire. They sat my dad down and explained to him very loudly why he shouldn’t ever do anything that stupid again. If you drive by the school now, there aren’t bushes anymore.
#25 Good Aim
The wrestlers all sat and ate lunch together, just generally talking badly about everyone and pranking innocent students... until someone on the JV team threw a piece of pork and hit the Hebrew varsity member square into his unsuspecting mouth. The JV dude couldn't wrestle for the next season and a half due to having the soul kicked out of him, plus broken ribs.
#26 A Wicked Tragedy
We had a kid take some pictures of two girls on campus. The pictures were posted on Craiglist. Word traveled quick and he got expelled with just three weeks left in his senior year A less notable one that still ticked me off was the Parkland tragedy. I'm in Florida, and I was in high school at the time. Students were allowed to talk about the event in a massive courtyard meeting but they weren't allowed to make it political, confiscating signs, refusing to let people talk on the microphone, etc.
#27 The Locker Thief
There was an older guy, let's say in his mid-50s who was going around different schools in my county and stealing out of the locker room of sports teams. My football team and I thought it was a joke until our stuff started going missing. One day, I came back from practice and was missing a pair of unwashed socks, one of my jerseys, and even my girdle. The guy ended up having his house raided and he was caught with hundreds of items from sports teams from schools in my area.
#28 Set Fire To The Room
While walking to class one day, we were told classes were canceled and no one knew why. The story came out a few days later. A professor was having an affair with a lady and she came to his office. She basically told him to choose between her or his wife and he chose his wife. He told her it was over. She then pulled out some gas from somewhere and lit the room on fire. The fire alarm went off—they both made it out but it was so awkward for them.
#29 Get It Back
Not a scandal, but just a horrible freaking thing to do. My university has discontinued a program that helps kids with down-syndrome and other mental disabilities. Out of nowhere they pulled the plug on it and stopped funding. Currently, there is a kick-starter and online petition going around to get it back.
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#30 Fun Ruiner
About a dozen seniors in my school got suspended and weren’t allowed to walk for graduation because they pulled a senior prank and my school had a zero prank tolerance policy. The prank they pulled was innocent—they broke out in a high school musical-like choreographed dance in the main hub. Everyone loved it. Even the teachers and hall monitors thought it was a great prank, but the superintendent was a jerk and punished them all anyway.
#31 Far From Mundane
The music teacher had an affair with one of the language teachers, and he lived in the back of the music room for a while when his wife kicked him out. Also, during one summer holiday, a couple of students broke into the school grounds and broke several windows. I don't know what they were trying to accomplish, but they were caught on camera and I think expelled. There is so much other stuff I could add. I thought my school life was mundane.
#32 Send Him Away
Two years before I got into high school, one of the math teachers was arrested during class. The police straight-up walked into a freshman algebra class and took the guy away in cuffs. Turns out, they found cameras in the classroom and there was evidence that he had he put them there. I don't remember how long they were there or many details, but I believe he got 15 years in prison for each recording.
#33 A Secret Life
Turned out earlier this year that one of our biology professors was the state leader of a white supremacist organization. He actively recruited young white men on campus and spread propaganda. He was called out and counter-fliers were posted with his name and picture on it. He was fired from the university after the scandal and investigation blew up.
#34 Tactless Comment
I was in the hospital at the time, so I only heard about this one—but the health teacher had cancer the entire time we were in high school. On the last day of school, the vice-principal, a very bald man, said, “We’d like to announce that Mrs. X has beat her cancer! I’m no longer the baldest person here!” It was super bad because everyone knew she was self-conscious about losing her hair.
#35 Messy Staff
The drama teacher cast herself, her husband, and the baseball coach in a show. She had an affair with the baseball coach and was later fired by the principal, who was caught having an affair with the guidance counselor. The guidance counselor was later discovered by the Spanish teacher to have four DUIs. It was a whole mess. I don't understand how they became staff of our school.
#36 International News
My high school had an international news incident when I was a sophomore. In fact, you could easily find the story online still. I don't think it necessarily deserved so much coverage but oh well. There was a "powderpuff football game" that I put in quotes because it was really just the senior girls beating the heck out of the juniors. Some guys were there and recorded parts of it. It was a huge deal—hospitalizations, police, suspensions, and expulsions right before graduation, you name it. In fact, the Wikipedia article about powderpuff football has a citation to this incident in the "violence" subsection of the page.
#37 The Asbestos Problem
Remodeling the school while it was in session. Why would that be bad? Well, when the school had been built, it was insulated with asbestos and it got everywhere when they started ripping walls and ceilings apart. They tried to hide it and tons of kids got sick. The school refused to lose the funding that would happen if they shut down, so the parents held protests and pulled their kids out of school. A bunch of doctors got together and actually sued the school district. We ended up having to close the school for months and make it all up in the summer.
#38 Shameless Self-Promotion
Two girls from our school decided they wanted to organize a school concert. They decided they wanted it to be a money-raising event. After that, they randomly looked for a sick kid, well, because they needed one to do the concert. They found some poor kid and proceeded with the concert. Just hours before the concert, they found out that the kid had been dead for six months. Also, it's worth mentioning that one of them was the head of a dance club which she wanted to promote by being a part of the concert...
#39 All About Paul
I was in seventh grade at the time. This sixth-grader, a very awkward kid I'll call Paul had a huge crush on an eighth-grade girl. This kid had a great idea to steal her iPod nano, the one with the camera, and record some sort of love letter to her. Towards the end of the school day, a police car rolled up to the school and escorted Paul out of the school. Turns out, he had taken the iPod and recorded explicit scenes before giving it back to the girl.
#40 The Rumor
The only time our school's basketball team ever went to state and won was back in the early '90s. The student that led the team to victory eventually went on to play in the NBA. Years later, rumors started to surface that the only reason he kept his grades up, seeing how he was a notoriously terrible student, was that he was secretly hooking up with the English teacher. At that time, he would have been too young...
#41 Unlucky Timing
My school is surrounded by roads and to get to a neighborhood, you have to cross a busy four-lane road. Well, one day a student went skipping and tried to cross the road. He ended up getting hit by a car. The worst part about it was that my mom witnessed him fly to the opposite side of the road. She said she couldn’t even tell it was a student since he was so messed up after. The whole school mourned his death and had a funeral for him. My brother was friends with him and he said that he was the nicest kid he knew. We now have a traffic light there so students don’t have to run every time they cross the road.
#42 The Homewrecker
The PE teacher had an affair with the mother of one of my classmates. He (and my classmate's mother) completely tore apart their family. The parents got a divorce, and the mother had the audacity to bring the PE teacher into her home and try to make the kids accept him as family. It really screwed them up for a long time. Surprisingly, he didn’t get fired, but when the news came to light, he lost all of his fellow teacher friends.
#43 Just Oblivious
Hmm. As for grade school, mine was pretty tame. A girl did get pregnant in Grade 12, and that might be the most notable thing I can think of. I barely even heard of it, just mentioned once or twice, and I didn't know her either. There was a death at my university once, but I don't know any details. Student, I think. Maybe the takeaway is that I'm oblivious as heck.
#44 Thankfully A Hoax
Two dudes posted a fake threat using some other kid's IP to frame him. They included very detailed stuff about how he'd wear his favorite fedora and trench coat and listed off a bunch of dangerous objects he'd bring (which all coincidentally were in the latest COD game). The FBI stormed into framed kid's house, took his computer, the whole nine yards. They found out who framed him real quick, like within a matter of hours. And we still had to go to school even though we didn't know it was a hoax.
#45 Harvard Vs. Stanford
During my freshman year, a senior pretended she got into both Harvard and Stanford on a special dual admissions program. She went so far as to lie that Mark Zuckerberg had personally called her to convince her to choose Harvard and was basically very public about the whole thing. She went viral in Korea as a “genius girl” and was written about in the NYT. Eventually, we all figured out that she lied and she ended up leaving the US to go to Korea. I think her dad is very high up at the gaming company Nexon, so she should be fine now.
#46 4,000 Pounds Of Bull
When I was in middle school, a bull wandered onto campus from one of the nearby ranches. We went into lockdown for like four hours while they figured out what to do about it. Ultimately, they wound up sedating the bull, so I imagine a good chunk of those four hours was just the authorities trying to figure out what to do with 4,000 pounds of bull. It was a small town.
#47 A Cruel Prank
At my high school, a few jerks from our football team rigged the votes for homecoming queen. An overweight girl actually won. She was really happy but that wasn’t the case when she figured out why, that these few guys from our team pulled a big prank on her. All our local news stations covered it.
While those guys that did it never got jailed or expelled or anything like that, their reputation among people at school was ruined, and they did get kicked from the football team. They thought this was worse than expulsion because football and popularity was literally all they knew in life.
#48 Harsh Times
Not a scandal but something "no one talks about" happened after my old high school was torn down. Somewhere on the school grounds, a skeleton was found. From what I gathered (I knew some local cops), the skeleton dated to the 1960s. The theory was some girl may have had a child out of wedlock (a big scandal back then) and...well, I'd rather not contemplate that part...
#49 Big Damage
Don't know if it qualifies as a scandal but a couple of years ago at a campus party a guy tried to do pull-ups on a water pipe, the pipe broke of course and flooded a whole floor. The party had to be stopped and everyone was evacuated. Over 300.000 dollars worth of damage. About 20 people must have seen him do it, but he never got caught, three years later the police were still investigating.
#50 Good Riddance
Mine was our special education teacher. A school near ours had students planning on having a very homophobic prom and allowing only straight people to attend. The national news came and our teacher went on and did an interview condoning it. She stated how she never understood how anyone could be gay and that she hated helping students who went to her with concerns about their sexuality. She was immediately and rightly let go.
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