High school is a crazy time for students. Between trying to find your identity, sorting through your friends, and keeping grades up, there’s hardly room to breathe. But, amidst all the personal trauma, high school can also produce its own scandals that just can’t be ignored.
#1 Missing Stats Teacher
My stats teacher for fired halfway through the year for laundering money through the basketball team. Shame he couldn't predict that. I'm not really sure all the details, but I remember we had a free week with no stats teacher, and the principal brought us huge candy bars because he felt bad. It was an AP class, so I guess he figured we were upset to have no teacher.
#2 The Hidden Door
I went to a charter school in PA, the founder took hundreds of thousands of dollars from the school district and used it for himself. In the back of the school, he built an apartment with a stripper pole but it was hidden in the school. You could only get to it through one door hidden in a closet. He was eventually caught stealing money and he took his life.
#3 “Helping” the Students
This was a year or two after I graduated, but there was this one teacher at my high school who was fired for a lot of things. For example, buying grass for and from students, partaking in said grass with them, purchasing alcohol for students, and writing a paper for a student for a different class in exchange for grass.
She’d also drive certain students who skipped school to a bar in a different city several hours away. Another time, she was caught sending a student a completely unsolicited text that said, "I've never wanted to cheat with anyone in my life, but I want to with you." So, yeah, there was a lot of stuff with her.
#4 Biggest Scandal in Decades
The soccer coach was sleeping with four of the soccer players (16-18 years old), two of them being other teachers’ daughters. They had it completely secret until his wife found a journal where wrote about each time he slept with each girl on the team. At the end of the school day, we walked out and there were several cop cars. They were walking him out of his building in cuffs. If I remember correctly, the girls didn’t have to come back to school for the rest of the school year (it was close to the end anyway). Everyone found out their names pretty quickly. It was the biggest scandal at that school in decades.
#5 A Little Happy Time
A student routinely had a little happy time in the gender-neutral bathroom (without cleaning up after himself). When people found out, they started leaving post-it notes for him to stop. Our principal had to address the entire school about it. I’m in no way saying this was a problem with the bathrooms themselves, but it was 100% a problem because of that individual.
#6 Oh, Right, That Incident
A few years ago, I had the TV on in the background with a true-crime show going. I wasn't paying much attention to it until I heard the line, "There wasn't much else for high school kids to do in (wife's hometown) during (year wife would have been in high school)." I started paying attention and it was covering some kind of ring that ended with the passing of one of the participants. I brought it up with my wife and she was like, "What? I don't remember… Oh, right, that incident…”
#7 One Old Creep
I had a friend in one of my high schools who had a pretty large chest for that age (16-17 years old). She had a teacher who used to call her “Double D” (her initials were DD). He always kept her late after school, making creepy comments, the usual. Apparently, every school has at least one old creep like that.
#8 See You Around
There was this younger, smokin' hot female teacher at my high school. Her boyfriend was on The Real World , and she did a visit on the show wearing a super skimpy bikini, talking about her boyfriend’s member. Everyone had already had a crush on her but this pushed it over the edge. I don't know if she quit teaching but I don't remember seeing her around school after that year.
#9 Blabbermouth Father
One of our history teachers had been a stripper before becoming a teacher. This was years earlier. She was a stripper before she even went to college to get her teaching degree. We found out about this because the father of one of my classmates had been a regular customer of hers and recognized her at a student-teacher conference. He told his son, who obviously told the entire school.
#10 A Personal Problem
My biology teacher was sleeping with a sophomore. It became a personal problem for me because I wanted to take AP Bio the next year, and I needed a recommendation from my current teacher to take the class. I asked the AP instructor if I should go to the state penitentiary to get my letter. (That requirement was waived for me, but I'm okay saying terrible things about the ordeal instead.)
#11 Suburban Dream Life
One of the girls was caught sleeping with the IT admin (she was 16 or 17 years old when that started). I heard an update from an old classmate nearly 20 years later and not only have they stayed together, but they’re also married, have three children together and live an upper-middle-class suburban dream life.
#12 Where Does it End?
The principal harassed a teacher. The gym teacher was fired for being too close to female students. (I couldn't get anymore details, but I did witness his strange behavior towards females in the class many times. One girl had a key to his office.) Students had intercourse in the bathroom and second theater. Nobody ever got caught in the theater as far as I know. There was also a knife attack during my freshman year. I didn't witness that itself, but I was in the hallway that it happened on and witnessed the loud and panicked crowd.
#13 National News Story
Our science teacher was an adult star in a past life. Someone in the school found a video she was in in his dad’s stash. It was a huge scandal in our conservative town. She was let go, which sucked because she was really an excellent teacher. It became a national news story. She was on Dr. Phil about it. Despite numerous campaigns by the students, she was never hired back.
#14 Switch Chairs With Me
A kid apparently treated himself in the back of the class. Someone apparently got it on their phone. The cops came and the person who recorded it got charged. He sat where I did, but in a different class period. So I switched my chair for a new, less disgusting chair. Turns out, every other class before me had also switched the chair, so we couldn’t find the one he sat in. We even made black lights with our phones to look for the chair. It was great.
#15 Agriculture Elective
The class was an agriculture elective. Once a student had completed enough required worksheets, they got to go over to the farm and do some work instead of sitting in class. Not exactly easy, but it was nice when the weather was cool. This guy had the class for both morning sessions, so he said he'd just stay over at the farm and get a ride back at the end of the next class. Well, among other incidents, he was not the brightest bulb in the box. He lost track of time and the next class came walking up to the barn to see him with the animals. Word was, the sheep didn't seem to notice…
#16 Hiding in the Bathroom
We had a charity event in high school where you'd raise money. The amount being raised was shown on a thermometer and every limit would force a teacher to shave their head. On the very top was this was the French teacher. The initiative was due to finish after lunch recess, a bunch of people were in gym shaving their heads and trying to raise money, bills flying down from the bleachers and we raised just enough money right at the bell.
The French teacher was not down and ran away, causing all the students to chase her into the bathroom, banging on the door and stuff. Soon after, she had a bit of a mental breakdown. Someone at school found out her Lava Life profile and she left. Also, some students took all the money raised in the initiative from the gym.
#17 Receiving No Punishment
I think this happened right after I graduated, but I was still friends and neighbors with the gym teacher. One day while changing, one of the students thought it would be funny to drop a number two in his own hand, carry it into the gym, and throw it at his friend who had already changed and was waiting for class to start. The teacher was too shocked to do anything at first but it splattered off the other kid’s shirt and then that kid started projectile hurling.
It started a chain reaction, and multiple students started dry heaving and then retching onto the gym floor, running out. The gym was closed down for two weeks and had to be repainted, the hardwood floors refinished. The kid who carried out the number two received no punishment from the school and the teacher moved to a different school the next year.
#18 High School Football Star
The football star at my high school was accused of attacking a four-year-old child and went to the slammer for it based on very little evidence. He was sentenced to 25 years. It was my junior year and his senior year. He had a full-ride scholarship to play football and he (along with everyone else) really thought he’d make it to the NFL.
He served three years of that sentence when the county’s new DA looked over his case and saw that there was basically no evidence, so he was released. This was in summer 2017 and he was officially exonerated last year. Turns out, it was his best friend, who looked just like him and lived with him, who did it. The dude is doing really well now. His girlfriend stuck with him through the whole thing and they’re married now. There’s actually a documentary on Showtime about it that just came out.
#19 I Want to See Everyone!
My first day of ninth grade, a senior took a hit of acid, took his clothes off, and ran around yelling, “I want to see everyone, I want to see everyone!” He was finally chilled out and they got a robe on him. Called his folks. Maybe he was suspended same him a few weeks later. Three years after that, he came to our house to install cable TV. My dad always kept some cheap drinks around for service people and the like. I gave him and his co-worker one and said we didn’t have any LSD. He laughed his butt off and said, “That’s probably a good thing!”
#20 Taking Matters Into His Own Hands
The girlfriend of my best friend was attacked one day. It didn’t take long for it to get around school. The police got to investigating the whole situation and after about a week, the suspect disappeared from school for several months. He came back as a registered offender. Then, the guy wound up in our class and when my best friend found out, he took matters into his own. The suspect ended up with a broken nose.
#21 No Glimpse of Regret
Two senior girls were having intercourse with the town deputy and his wife and during a summer morning after leaving the deputy’s house. They were both completely wasted and swerved into oncoming traffic, taking a man’s life on the way to school. Both girls have kids, are married and never showed a glimpse of regret or change of lifestyle after the crash.
#22 Vanished Very Quietly
We had this weird science teacher. He was your standard mid-50s creep, but he had a really bad stroke or something that required part of his skull to be removed. So, he had this huge seam on his head from the metal plate. He used to make girls stay behind after class and wash the lab tables while watching them. It happened to me a couple of times, but I was never more than just a bit creeped out. The next year, he vanished very quietly.
#23 Widely Accepted Rumor
Not even a scandal, just a widely accepted rumor. The English teacher was purported to select one male per senior class to try and woo and sleep with. My friend claimed his older brother was that year’s selection, prodding him to strive to do the same. Unfortunately for him, another (uninterested) buddy actually was. It resulted in her petting his arm, giggling at his jokes, bending over in front of him, etc. She left to become a principal at a different district a few years later.
#24 Trip to Greece
A teacher who was always suspected of having inappropriate relationships with students managed to get on the wrong plane with a student during the senior trip. They ended up in Greece when everyone else was in Italy. Nine months later, she had a baby but didn’t tell anyone who the father was. We knew who it was.
#25 Welcoming a Scandal
An English teacher would make out with a student during his planning period while his wife was teaching classes next door. After school, he would make excuses to his wife about having to stay late and meet the student at hotel rooms. He was led out of the school in handcuffs in front of the entire school. Funnily enough, the cops gave him the opportunity to go out the back door of the school and not make a scene, but he refused.
#26 Jealous Ex-Boyfriend
We had this kid who was super upset about his ex-girlfriend getting with a new guy. So, he decided he was going to end the new guy’s life right in front of her. Their class was all lined up outside for gym and he walked up to the guy, went to pull the piece out of his pants, accidentally hit the trigger, and shot himself in his junk (and through his thigh). He ran just far enough to collapse on my English teacher's doorstep. He survived.
#27 His Time in Prison
One day, we all came to school and the front office, which was surrounded by glass, was shattered. We all assumed some loser vandalized the school. A couple of weeks later, the police came and took in our principal and one of the vice-principals. No one knew why. Turns out that one of our other vice principals (maybe early 30s) had made out with a girl in my class (17), who was also the daughter of the varsity football coach.
She was dating my friend’s older brother (straight degenerate addict). The older brother found out and came and threw a rock at the glass building. Our principal and vice-principal knew and covered it up, which got them arrested. Eventually, the guilty VP was charged and sentenced to a couple of years in San Quentin. He now has a YouTube channel and came out with a book about his time in prison.
#28 Hole in the Wall
In the auditorium, there was this obvious hole in the wall. When I say hole, I mean a 10ft by 10ft square, but it was up by the roof and back behind the stage curtains. One day, my friend said she saw the janitor climbing down from it on a ladder and she saw where he put the ladder. After school, we went back there and sure enough, she went straight to the ladder. We climbed up to the hole and there was a pretty big ledge in the hole with a twin-sized mattress covered in stains and a rack of old Playboys . I was very concerned about the janitor after this.
#29 Normal Teaching Day
My math teacher literally woke up one day, took his wife’s life, and arranged things so it looked like she did it herself. He then emptied her bank account and went on to have a normal teaching day at school. We even had a mass (Catholic school) for her weeks later and he faked grief through it all. We found out months later during school recess.
#30 The Urinator
Dubbed the "Urinator," they kept finding puddles in the school hallways, stairwells, and the handicap elevator. The school had cameras everywhere but they never saw someone just wetting themselves in the hallway. No one knew how it kept happening without someone being caught. Turns out, someone was going in a Gatorade bottle and in between classes when halls were full, they would just randomly spill it somewhere and no one around them noticed. The method only got found out when the bottle with some leftovers was found in the trash. But they still never found who actually was doing it.
#31 Drinking Toilet Water
One girl got caught treating some boys (both students) in the bathroom right in front of the school office. This was especially memorable because of how everyone found out. A student with mild mental disabilities came out of the bathroom and reported that it looked there was a girl in the men’s room “drinking toilet water” since the guy was sitting on the toilet.
#32 The Student’s Master Plan
The fire alarm was pulled as a distraction to take a math teacher’s grade book that she personally walked around with every day. Well, that day she left it in the class because of the fire alarm and when she returned, it was missing. But how? She was the last one out. Needless to say, everyone passed that class and the lowest grades handed out were C's.
#33 In the Basement
A kid in my high school’s family was legitimately keeping slaves in his basement. One of them escaped and ran to a Dunkin Donuts. They were freed and the parents charged. The people were chained in the basement and covered in burns. The kid never showed up at school again. The whole school was divided between hating him and feeling bad for him. Some thought he should have reported his family. Others thought he was likely a victim himself. It was crazy.
#34 Still Seems Miserable
We had a football coach sleep with one of the cheerleaders. I was so blind to it all. He was my positional coach and I had respect for him so I never believed it. He never talked about it and I was friends with that cheerleader, who she always denied it. Two years after graduation, they got married because she was already pregnant with their second child.
She dropped out of college in her first semester and became a stay-at-home mom. Her Facebook page now is just really sad. It’s been almost 16 years since we graduated and she still seems miserable. All her dreams just vanished and she’s still married to that coach, who’s getting older and fatter. He’s over 60 and she is in her 30s.
#35 Backwards Hometown
A jock we went to school with did an adult film with another man. This was the early 2000s in a rural town, so homophobia was prevalent. For some reason, he told his baseball teammates about the video. He came to school two more times and then disappeared. His family moved a few weeks later. Nobody in my high school class has heard or seen him since.
Now, on the one hand, I can appreciate that he just wanted to “get it over with” and let the world know. Maybe he was gay and figured making a few thousand dollars for coming out was worth it. On the other, if he hadn’t told anybody and somebody in my town came across this video… who were they going to tell? Ultimately, I feel bad that my hometown is so backwards.
#36 Slap on the Wrist
The school cop was on patrol one night. He pulled over an 18-year-old senior he knew for speeding. I don't know who initiated it, but they ended up sleeping together in the back seat of his cruiser and she got off. We all found out when she told her best friend. The best friend’s mom overheard and told the police department.
His punishment? He was told he could no longer be a school resource officer. This was back in like 2006 or 2008. He was fired from his job this past year for failing to go to a 911 suicide call and preventing a fellow officer from going to it for almost 30 minutes. Oh, he also told the guy, whose house the woman was found in, that he was headed there.
#37 No One Did Anything
There was a 24-year-old teacher who attacked a couple of students at parties. He also started dating a 17-year-old student before he finally just got fired. There were 50 kids in my graduating class, it was a small school and everyone knew. Still, no one did anything about it for a long time. Oh, it was also attached to a church.
#38 Small Town in Utah
During my senior year, a girl would walk home every day by herself along the canal that ran along the school’s soccer fields. One day, she never came home and the family called the police. They found her in the canal (luckily, it was drained at the time) with a hole in the back of her head. Unconscious, they rushed her to the hospital.
I don’t know how, but she survived and is now doing really well. They found the boys who did it because one of them had kept the shell in his room. When asked why they did it, they simply said she was annoying. This rocked my community pretty bad as I grew up in a small town in Utah where everyone went to the same church.
#39 Private High School
I went to a private Christian high school. A popular senior cheerleader suddenly started gaining weight. One of our teachers stopped the class to (tearfully) explain that the student was sick and had been taking some medication that made her intestines swell. She also said that some students were making fun of her (calling her fat, calling her pregnant, etc). Needless to say, we all felt bad. Turns out, she was pregnant and had just made everything up to try and pass her senior year without getting expelled. That included faking doctors’ notes.
#40 Sent to Different Schools
One of the assistant principals was seen getting out of a senior’s truck, the senior followed behind. After this got out, the same assistant principal was also revealed to be having an affair with the principal. The assistant principal and the actual principal were married (to different people) and had children (with their respective spouses).
The principal’s twins were in middle school. This happened the last week of school and the assistant principal was moved to an elementary school. The principal moved to the exceptional children’s classroom at another school as well. Sadly, the principal’s children were bullied for the rest of their eighth-grade year and didn’t have many friends at the high school.
#41 Still Laughing About It
I went to a private Christian school, and some time after I graduated, we apparently had a crazed seventh-grade class. They were sending photos to each other and stuff. I only ever heard about it secondhand from my sister, who was still attending at the time. Considering how many of these kids were children of staff or boosters, it still makes me laugh nine years later.
#42 No Repercussions Whatsoever
A few years ago at my high school, the baseball team had a Dropbox full of 100’s of girls’ pictures and were caught by the administration. However, it was swept under the rug so the team could still play at state that year and one of the creators received a full-ride scholarship to Stanford University for baseball.
#43 Popular With Staff and Students
My school had a counselor. He was very well-liked and popular with staff and students. We all knew him on some level but he did the daily announcements at the beginning of the first period. He was funny and we all enjoyed it. Then one day, there were no announcements, which was very odd. The next day, someone else did them but that day the paper hit, news was circulating. This counselor was caught receiving an inappropriate act from a male student. It was consensual, but he was still under 18 so the guy was thrown in prison and we never heard about him again. I have no idea what happened with the student.
#44 Never Got Any Details
There was a really good teacher who I had a few classes with in my middle school years, who happened to be gay. He was definitely a popular teacher and pretty much all the students and staff liked him. A few years later, I found out he was fired for allegedly having some sort of relationship with a student. It was sad and a shock to hear and I always thought there had to be some extenuating circumstances. But obviously, I never got any details.
#45 Three Male Students
A female English teacher was having relationships with three different male students. She would apparently pick them up in her van and take them to the mall parking lot to sleep with them. Cops found out and all three of the guys transferred schools. She went to jail for some amount of time, then got released to probation and became a registered offender. She was married with two small children. I’m pretty sure her husband stayed with her.
#46 Left in the Motel
One of our high school guidance counselors was a creepy dude. He was in a sleazy motel, tied up, with a gash on his head and his car stolen from the parking lot of the motel. It turns out that he had two high school girls meet up with him at the motel (which wasn’t the first time). They finally had enough of his stuff, tried to take his life, tied him up and took his car.
#47 Every Morning Before School
We had a teacher meet with a junior student to hook up every morning, 30 minutes before school started. Both were females, and they were caught by none other than the principal himself. The principal popped in to say good morning. The teacher was able to quit without much hassle, she was investigated but got off the hook somehow. She now teaches at another school in the same state.
#48 High School Coaches
We had more than one coach in high school sleeping with or having inappropriate relationships with students. I had always heard the rumors in school and never much more of it. Many years later, I ran into a classmate who was the center of one of those rumors. During our conversation, the discussion came up about the rumor and it somehow turned out to be true. Over the years, I’ve heard more stories of coaches sleeping students at my high school and it sickens me. These were adult men that I wouldn’t have given a second thought to being in a room alone with.
#49 A Glorious Nightmare
A girl in my sophomore history class gave the whole basketball team chlamydia. Those kids then gave it to the cheerleading team. From there, it spread to the football team. Then it passed on to the gymnastic team who gave it to the track team… who gave it to the band kids. It was an absolute nightmare and it was glorious.
#50 Multiple Affairs
The principal had intercourse with another married teacher. The female teacher’s kid was in my grade and I felt so bad for him. Being in a small town, everyone knew everything pretty quickly, and he was a nice kid. The principal’s secretary was also having intercourse with random seniors over the years. Her daughter was in the grade above me but I felt less bad for her because she was kind of like that too.
