High school can be both exciting and terrifying. Within a four year span, you learn a whole lot about yourself and other people. Friendships are made while enemies are created, and what you do with those relationships after graduation is up to you. You're also put into all sorts of random situations. Some are harmless fun, like tricking your teacher into sitting on a whoopie cushion, but others are so notorious they quickly become the talk of the cafeteria.
If that's not enough, the local news may arrive to ask you some questions. From bathroom mishaps to grades being changed, these got everyone talking in the halls. Years after graduation, these situations still feel like they happened yesterday. They'll certainly be brought up again at the next high school reunion.
Don't forget to check the comment section below the article for more interesting stories!
#1 Would I Lie To You?
A girl in my year lied about having a relationship with a teacher. We all knew that she was straight up crazy and was making it up, but the school board obviously had to take it very seriously and the teacher was fired. The worst part was that the teacher's wife was also a teacher at the school, so even though she wasn't fired, she pretty much had to leave her job as well. The school board eventually figured out the girl was lying and offered both teachers their positions back, but they both declined.
#2 B For Busted
Some guy jokingly wrote, "If I don't get a B for this, I'm going on a rampage" on his English test. 15 minutes later, a police response unit stormed the classroom and arrested him on the spot. They did it non-violently, but it still was quite frightening for deterrence reasons, I guess. Needless to say, I think the guy learned his lesson.
#3 The Phrase That Pays
My high school had some fights that managed to make the local news, and the principal’s words about it were broadcasted as well. She was livid and talked loudly in a passive-aggressive manner over the announcements the next morning, repeating our school’s mission statement over and over, and ending the broadcast with: “Record THAT!” The whole speech became a bit of a meme around the school after that. Some students even made t-shirts with "Record THAT!" written across the backs.
#4 It's Everywhere You Want To Be
My high school's district superintendent did a lot of shady things. She hired a relative who wasn't qualified for the job, increased the salary of administrators every year, and also used the district's credit card to buy meals, groceries, gas, personal electronics, and gift cards. When the state audit went through, they said that the damage was around $1.1 million.
Her husband was also an administrator. When she eventually got caught, she just retired and for some reason never faced federal charges. My favorite part is that the state audit discovered that the district's credit card was used to purchase logging equipment the same month the superintendent's husband filed paperwork to open a timber company. Everyone knew there was corruption in the school district, but no audits or investigations happened until someone was threatened by the superintendent's husband on Facebook.
#5 Roasts For Days
Someone created a fake Facebook profile for our principal. He was commenting realistically on teachers pages but the context never lined up. Then, once he had everyone as friends, he started subtly roasting kids. (He accessed the account from the computer lab and was never caught). He was my friend's brother.
#6 Broadcast To The World
I went to a small Christian high school that also had a middle and elementary school on the grounds. The principal of the high school had a child that was in my grade. One day, he went on the intercom and announced that he would be stepping down from his position. He talked about how he and the female gym coach had been having an 'emotional affair' for the last few months.
The announcement is broadcasted through every speaker in all three schools. I remember everyone in my class looking over at his daughter who had a look a complete surprise on her face. From what I gathered, this was the first time she was hearing about all of this. Shortly after, the gym teacher also left her position, but the most interesting part? The gym teacher had no idea this was going on.
She was just doing her job and thought she was friends with everyone. The principal read more into their relationship and decided to go to the church with it. Under the priest's counsel, the principal decided to speak publicly about his feelings. The gym teacher left her job out of shame and had to spend a lot of time explaining to her husband what exactly was going on.
#7 Protest Is Patriotism
At the French-speaking school, some students got suspended because of a song they sang at a talent show. The issue the school had with the song is that it was in English. The students decided to do a sit-in and not go to class in protest of the suspension. Once it hit the news, it reignited a lot of French vs. English sentiments throughout the whole town.
#8 Big Brother Is Watching You
My school district gave all high school students laptops that they could bring home with them to use for school work. They could also remotely activate the webcams and spy on students (although, of course, they didn't tell us this). One kid got caught drinking adult beverages this way while he was in his room at home and I think was going to get suspended. He sued the district for the invasion of privacy and won the case. It got national media attention for a little while.
#9 An Iconic Toilet Story
Around 1998, someone went #2 in a toilet at my high school. It was so big that it couldn't be flushed. The story made its way around the school quickly, and there was a line out the door to that bathroom for at least an hour before the faculty caught the wind. From what we heard, it took the janitor four flushes after breaking it down with a plunger.
Fast forward a couple of weeks to the real aftermath. Someone managed to take a picture of the toilet and created a website dedicated to the entire thing. The person who made the site was dumb enough to use his name and the school threatened him with expulsion if he didn't take the site down. He said no. So he had to go in front of the school board to make his case about how it was his right to have a website. This made the local news and made my junior year extremely funny.
#10 It's A Miracle!
A kid in Grade 11 high fived a Jesus statue in the chapel of our school so hard he fell off the cross and onto the ground. Some kids took him to the woodwork class and left his arms outstretched on the woodwork tables, his eyes judging. He was hammered back up there after minor repairs. The kid genuinely felt bad about it and he wasn't given any penalties.
#11 The Wheels On The Bus Go...Flat
In my sophomore year, a group of seniors decided a good senior prank would be to sneak into the bus garage and slash the tires on buses in order to get out of school. It ended up causing over $40,000 in damages and the police came to the school to do interviews all week. Apparently, most of them got away with it because of how the buses were parked at the time (some of them were doubled up, so they only hit the second row of buses, which made camera views "too far away to positively identify"). After that year, our school district changed their bus lots so that the buses were lined up in a single row only. They also beefed up the camera systems.
#12 One Psychotic Teacher
My English teacher was a few McNuggets short of a happy meal. Her husband worked at a large chain grocery store as a manager and she talked about his work a lot because she was a boring woman nearing middle age teaching English in a town of 800 people. She used to go absolutely ballistic for little to no reason.
An 8th grader with messy writing? Better berate him in front of his peers for 10 minutes straight and then yell at him for disrupting her class. Someone coughs during an exam? Better go off on a long-winded tangent about how disrespectful it is to make so much noise when their classmates were writing an exam that they were "probably going to fail anyway." Stuff like that.
This was in the early days of iPods, well before every kid had a smartphone. A few of us just start skipping all her classes. One day, a friend of mine started skipping class with us. Suddenly, the vice principal hauled him down into the office to give him the gears for skipping class. He broke down, explaining how he didn't want to go to class because the woman was targeting him.
He was told to either go to class or get suspended. He opted for the suspension. His mom called our parents and wanted to talk to us students about what was going on and why we were all skipping class. We told her. A few days later, she rolled up with a bunch of off-brand, knockoff iPods that had microphones. She told us to go to class, leave the iPods in our desks, and act normal.
She got them back from us, ripped the audio to a DVD and went to the school board. The next two weeks, an old bald dude in a suit started sitting quietly in our classes. The teacher completely changed her attitude. Then, as soon as he left, she went back to her crazy self. The new recordings are ripped, handed in and suddenly she and her husband, who worked at a grocery store, was moving to the other side of the country. Very, very fishy.
#13 Wiping It All Clean
The school got a new building wing as part of STEM. We had a really large class doing CAD on the new computers they bought and we had to work on projects for months at a time. Some people wanted to back up their work, but the problem was the file sizes for the projects were decently sized and they were a file type that Google Drive couldn't recognize.
Everything had to be saved locally, which was fine because the school said if a project was corrupted or deleted, it would not be the student's fault. The school refused to get a backup service because it was too expensive. Fast forward five months: we are working on our final project, and have been for over a month now. That night, there was a heavy storm that caused a lot of water to leak through the roof and destroy most of the PCs.
Luckily, the data was still there, so they fixed them, replaced motherboards, ram, etc. However, the person fixing them wiped the SSD to put Windows 10 on. We lost all of our data, with two weeks left of school. There was nothing we could do; only one kid had managed to save his project on an HDD that he brought to school with him.
The school made the teacher give the whole class failing grades because one kid had his, which meant every student should have been able to turn theirs in. Now, there was an outcry. Parents were livid and people were crying. The teacher was angry at the school too. The school, after getting threatened with news coverage, agreed to give everyone an 85 on their final projects.
#14 Cheating To Win
A kid installed keyloggers on the computers in various classrooms to gather the passwords the teachers used to enter grades into the system, Then, he started changing the grades. He did a few minor alterations at first, removing a something here or there, but then he started telling people what he was doing, and they ended up asking him to change their grades as well. The adjustments got more and more significant until the teachers realized that someone was messing with the system. An investigation was launched and several kids were hit with suspensions. It was a big thing.
#15 Not Made For TV
Once upon a time, MTV produced a reality TV show called "Made." Each episode was about some teenager who wanted to self-improve in some way. Maybe some kid wanted to become a cheerleader, or a dancer, or an actor, or an athlete, whatever. MTV would set them up with a mentor and capture their progress as they were "made" into the better person they wanted to be.
My classmate, Beans, had no such lofty ambitions. He was a total screw-up. All he wanted to do was graduate high school. He had already failed at this, as he was a super-senior. MTV picked him. I still can't imagine why. My whole senior year, MTV camera crews were roaming the halls of my high school, mostly following Beans.
Beans had a mentor assigned to him; some tough-as-nails wannabe drill sergeant to push Beans in the right direction. Beans didn't change one bit. He kept partying, getting in trouble, and remained a delinquent. He and his idiot friends even went out joyriding around town bashing in mailboxes with a baseball bat. Local police caught them. We'll come back to this later.
Despite the fact that Beans legitimately should have failed his senior year again, the faculty caved to MTV's pressure and gave him, barely, passing marks. Beans walked last in the graduation ceremony so he would get an extra-big cheer. It was all dreadfully fake and cringeworthy. A couple of months after graduation, the episode aired. Beans flat-out said, on camera, that he had lied to the local police that night when he had been bashing in mailboxes.
After the episode aired, the police came back for him. I don't know how it all ended (I moved on with my life and out of that town), but from the sound of things, he was in deep trouble. He never stopped being a screw-up. He never self-improved in any way. He never stopped being a loser. And, because of the legal ramifications, Season 2 Episode 4 of "Made" never made it to reruns, to the best of my knowledge.
#16 Banned For Life
The principal got accused of doing some inappropriate stuff by a girl who had been a student several years before. Later, it was found (she admitted) that she was lying and was just mad about something else, but this guy's whole life was still ruined. He was the best teacher I've ever had; just a wonderful guy who devoted his life to teaching. He had to move away and get some factory job in the middle of nowhere. He can never work in education again, even though he literally didn't do anything. The poor guy is probably about 70 now, still doing manual labor at a factory to make ends meet.
#17 Cut From The Team
The Latin teacher at my school ran a sponsored charity where they would pack backpacks full of canned food and school supplies for food-unstable elementary school kids. The program received funding through high school. The principal removed money from the program and put it into the football program instead to buy new uniforms. When the Latin teacher found out, she took it public. The whole school knew about it. In response, the principal cut funding to the foreign language department and fired her.
#18 You Big Dummy!
During homecoming one year, while in high school (I was in senior year), we were playing our rivals and sometime during the school day, everyone went outside to see a dummy dressed in the rival school's gear. They set the dummy on fire. Later on that night, we beat them. That and the burning of the dummy made the front page of the paper.
#19 At Least It Wasn't The Trophy
Our high school football team was celebrating after winning the championship game. They were partying with the coaches in the football changing room, which was on the top level of the school. I guess from all the excitement, they threw a TV out the window, shattering the glass in the process. We were on the news and it was a fairly big deal. All the students thought it was hilarious though.
#20 So That's What Chapstick Is For
A group of well-off kids in my graduating class got together and put chapstick on scantron sheets, so the machine wouldn’t mark their wrong answers. Well, a teacher caught onto their shenanigans because she felt the scantron sheets and they were sticky. Then, she reported the involved students to the principal. Those kids weren’t suspended or anything like that because their parents were like, “My kid would NEVER do that.” Instead, the teacher got moved to our rival school. I never liked those kids before it happened, and I still don’t like them.
#21 A Yearlong Struggle
Sometime during lunch, someone decided to take a bunch of blueberries and smash them on the courtyard outside. Although it got washed away by the rain the next day, the fifth-grade paras through a fit over it, which lasted the rest of the school year. They even went through HOURS of security footage just to try and find out who it was.
#22 Another Failed Petition
Two years ago, some seniors went to get something to eat and when they returned to school, they were pretty intoxicated. Later, they were found in the bathroom; one was puking while the other had passed out. We all saw the ambulance and policemen in the parking lot. They were expelled and their girlfriends then tried to get students to sign a petition for them to be allowed to finish the year.
#23 Took Matters In Their Own Hands
My corrupt principal burnt down my high school when I was in Grade 10 and blamed it on a handicapped student. Everyone knew it was the principal who had said previously, "I guarantee there will be a new state-of-the-art gymnasium in this school by the time I retire." Guess what area of the school was set on fire?
#24 The Number Of The Beast
Our high school graduation date was June 6, 2006. Graduation had been held that day for decades. This was at a public high school in California. The local churches all had a huge hissy fit over the 666 dates. After funding from local businesses was threatened to be withdrawn from the school, the date was changed to June 7.
More than half the graduating class of 500 students did not show up because of trips and events planned far ahead of time. This included all but two student speakers. Many students' families planned to come to town for that day to be disappointed that they could no longer attend. Personally, my own uncle and older brother missed it because they had requested the 6th off work, not the 7th.
There were no refunds for tickets, gowns or anything. They treated it like they were doing a favor to everyone. This also changed the date students could pick up their diplomas. My homeroom teacher had to cancel his overseas trip to come in unpaid to hand out diplomas the day after. Thanks, religious superstitions... for absolutely nothing.
#25 Grocery Store Playing Favorites
I won't give away too many details, but basically, here's the lowdown. My school is a private school. Let's call it school A. There are a few state schools in the area, including one called school B. A grocery store is situated near both the schools, which kids go to and get their lunch from. Now, a national newspaper ran a story saying how the grocery store let people in from private school A but made people from the state school B line up outside and only let a few in at a time. It made the front page.
#26 Furries Are People, Too
Furries. Yeah, I know. On Halloween day, we're allowed to wear costumes and such. Three kids wore their “fursuits,” but they couldn't wear masks. This is what triggered them. They claimed it was discrimination and targeting the outcasts or some crap. They even wanted to sue. Everyone kinda blew it off because the no-mask rule was instated for valid safety reasons.
#27 Trying To Go Viral
Some kid brought in a computer that looked exactly like the school's computers. He smashed it on the floor in front of the tech teacher. Some kid filmed it and posted it on YouTube. Everyone involved was suspended, but when the kid was leaving the school, everyone was cheering for him.
#28 Up In Smoke
I went to a private Christian high school. During my sophomore year, our class managed to get our school banned from returning to the zoo for field trips. It turned out, like 98% of our class got busted drinking adult beverages in the zoo by several parents who were also there that day with their young children. I think if it had been fewer kids who were caught, they would have been expelled, but because it was literally most of the class, they decided to just suspend them.
Out of the entire class, myself and two others of my classmates weren't questioned. Those two hadn't been on the field trip. I didn't get questioned because I spent the entire field trip with my teacher and his wife because I was confined to a wheelchair during that period. I forget their reasoning on why I was stuck by their side, but I was happy about it the next day. For a week straight, there were a few classes where I was the only student in the class. My history teacher let me watch movies during his class and my science teacher did random experiments for my entertainment.
#29 Kids Gotta Eat
The cafeteria was going to raise prices one year and the vast majority of the student body protested by not buying lunch at all. After less than a week, they reduced the prices slightly. This angered the students off even more and the cafeteria during lunch was constantly chanting: "Old price or no dice." After two days of that, they put the prices back to what they were.
#30 Awkward Bathroom Moments
One time, my school board was caught using donation money (that was supposed to go towards fixing up the broken toilets) on iPhones, expensive jewelry and bags, etc. The parents found out because a year passed and nothing in the school had changed. The school ended up firing most of the board and did not give any money back for fixing the toilets. I still can't take a #2 for the fear of the stall doors breaking.
#31 Get The Lead Out
One of our shop teachers would melt down lead tire weights in the machine shop to make the shot. The kiln was tied into the school's ventilation system and about half the school was repeatedly contaminated with lead. Now that I think about it, I have no idea how often he did it before he was caught... My lungs could be full of lead for all I know.
#32 Can't Stop Scratching
The entire football team shared some kind of contagious rash that was being transmitted to other students via the toilets. They shut down the school early the day they found out and canceled school the next day so that they could sanitize everything.
#33 Teachers Need To Let Loose, Too
Following a successful government inspection, the headmaster used a teacher training day to reward the staff with a cruise to have lunch and plenty of drinks in France. They stopped by the Hypermarket on their way back to load up on cheap drinks (UK tax is much higher than French tax). From the sound of things, they enjoyed themselves.
Apparently, one of the Physical Education teachers climbed into the overhead baggage compartment and slithered his way down the coach. I don't know who leaked it; I guess there was one spoilsport teacher in the group, but later that week a national newspaper ran the story of our intoxicated teachers' day out and the school was besieged by photographers and reporters looking for a comment from pupils.
#34 They're Only Calves
We had a new principal. At my school, we had uniforms, but as long as you had clothes from the uniform shop, you could wear what you wanted. The principal decided that the skirts and kilts had to be worn with knee socks. This sparked OUTRAGE. All the girls protested as the rule did not apply if you wore the shorts. Also, the socks were really expensive. None of the staff felt like policing it because they thought it was stupid. Students actually made signs that said, "Mrs. so-and-so is offended by calves, tell her to grow up." The rule was thrown out after a week. I guess we won.
#35 Were The Stalls Painted Green?
A field trip was canceled. It cost $150 because it was a zip-lining field trip. The school asked us if we wanted the money back or if we wanted to put it towards our graduation field trip. Almost everyone chose to get their money back. Four months went by, and nothing. I called and the principal said, “I’m sorry, we used all of the money for repainting the bathroom stalls.” 'I questioned her, “Well, what was wrong with the stalls?” She said, “I didn’t like that they were blue.”
#36 A Physical Misfortune
My brother was a freshman and I was a junior. He was in gym class and got his leg caught in an old exercise bike. Calf muscles got totally mangled because it was one of the ones where the pedals didn’t stop when you lifted your feet off. The gym teacher was not watching any of the kids in the weight room. My dad sued the district for $300,000 and won.
#37 Fake It 'Til You Make It
A teacher got fired for faking her degree for 20 years. Not surprised. She clearly didn't understand her science book because I remember her interpretation of several things being... questionable. But degrees don't really prove anything either, so who knows.
#38 Gotta Hit That Block Button
Two kids made a fake Instagram account of a teacher. One day, a bunch of administrators came into the classes and took certain kids out. They proceeded to ask them to unlock their phones. The admins then went on their Instagram apps and looked through to see if they followed the fake teacher account. The kid got caught by asking people to go follow his own account.
#39 It Was Nice Knowing You
My math teacher hated how corrupt my school was. One day in a meeting, he was trying to get some issues addressed when one of the older teachers (and known garbage human) shushed him. He said, “I might as well quit.” The school was stoked and pretended that was his formal notice. They let him show up to work the next day just so they could have him escorted off campus by the police. Absolute dump of a school.
#40 Making Some Quick Cash
During my freshman year, we had to do these series of quizzes around spring break. The catch was that you had to type your name and then email the teacher the score you got afterward. Two guys were charging people like $8 a pop to do their quizzes for them. They would put down the client's name and send the code with the client's email address. Well, someone snitched and one of the sellers got called down to the office. As soon as the clients saw his face, they knew he spilled everything. One by one, everyone who was involved went up to the office an that’s how half my year got their first honor code strike. One more and they would get kicked out of our academy.
#41 A Tainted Graduation
The school got a new principal who everyone hated. Graduation was two days away and I started seeing all these people that I remember had dropped out a long time ago. I asked one kid that I knew really well: “Dude, what the heck? I haven’t seen you in a long time where have you been?” He replied, “ I dropped out but the principal called and told me I that I would be able to graduate.” Then, during graduation, the new principal announced that she was the first principal in the district to have a 100% graduation rate. The crowd went wild and everyone got a diploma. Two weeks later, the principal was jailed and all over the news for forging countless student grades and attendance.
#42 Dismissing A Beloved Teacher
One of the music teachers was set aside and reassigned. He has MS and is in his 40s, so it is rather advanced. He is a student and parent favorite. The local school board decided he was no longer allowed to teach band since he "couldn't conduct." It wasn't an issue in the last few years, and there have been no significant changes in his abilities between then and now. It blindsided him and the students.
#43 Scuffle At The Game
The fall of last year was my first semester at college. During a basketball game, one of my school's basketball players elbowed a rival team member in the face. He legit just ran up to the rival member and did it deliberately. I heard the reason he did that was that the other team was being disruptive and rude, but I'm not completely sure.
The school would not tolerate it. He got suspended and banned from campus. The whole story was even in the news and it spread around the school like wildfire. Everyone was surprised and debating whether or not the guy should be let back on campus. Not sure what happened next, but I think it got sorted out.
#44 One Wild Teacher
One of our teachers had suffered from addiction but was genuinely a great guy. One day, he came to school with adult beverages in his coffee mug and he got so plastered by the second period that he started telling kids to fight each other, even placing bets on who would win. Our principal, sadly, had to let him go. They were friends and he gave him enough chances. Real sad.
#45 No More Bathroom Selfies
About three weeks ago, a group of freshmen ripped a toilet out of the wall and flipped it over in the boy's bathroom. Yes, a whole freaking toilet. The kid who did it was suspended and sent a $2,000 fine for repairs, and not even a week after that, the friend of that kid snuck into the girl's bathroom and ripped another toilet out of the wall. Now half the bathrooms on campus are locked and we have to sign in every time we go to the bathroom. Also, since these freaking idiots posted their wrongdoings on Snapchat, now we have to turn our phones in while we're out in the bathroom because taking out phones encourages posting destruction on social media.
