25 High School Dramas People Only Picked Up On Long After Graduation

Oftentimes, teens are too wrapped up in their own worlds to notice what may have been going on right under their very noses. Maybe these folks weren’t the most observant in their youth, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t eventually learn the tea in adulthood. Fortunately for us, they didn’t hold back in sharing, and now we too are privy to all the salacious details of people’s scandalous high school stories. Shared in response to ShortyT_Piano’s question, “What’s the craziest piece of high school drama you didn’t learn until after you graduated?”, we’ve rounded up the best answers and collected them in the gallery below.

#1

Image source: Walmartian_Beta, vh-studio A friend of a friend was sleeping with one of the special education aides who was there to facilitate an extra study hall for the kids who had them as part of their 504 and IEP plans. The friend of a friend was a bit slower than other kids, just a general low IQ and an ADD diagnosis. He was apparently bragging about being intimate with the woman hired to supervise the study hall. She wasn't a teacher, didn't have a teaching degree or anything, but was serving a supervisory function. Totally inappropriate. All the guys were cheering him on though. I guess it went on for a while and she was "suddenly fired for no reason." It was all swept under the rug.

#2

Image source: Morn_GroYarug, freepik My school had a secret boys poker club, that got uncovered after one of them bet his gf, lost, and she complained to the teachers, not wishing to become the winner's gf.

#3

Image source: FenrisCain, freepik The head of the english department had an affair with the head of science. His adult daughter then turned up and keyed science teachers car during school hours, and they somehow hushed this up until another teacher had a few too many at our formal/prom and spilled the gossip to a bunch of us.

#4

Image source: Virtual-Bee7411, kiangdeb Some girls dad had a secret bathroom camera that filmed tons of underage girls. He was a well known doctor in our area and his kids were very nice people. Daughter was in my grade, so smart and kind. They had a big house with a separate pool house and the camera was in the pool house bathroom. Kids were there all the time. It was so shocking and so sad, I feel so sorry for all the innocent children and now his own children have lost their father. Absolutely massive scandal in our community. He’s in prison for the rest of his life I believe.

#5

Image source: TheoryUnlikely7199, freepik Found out our quietest, most wholesome teacher was the secret mastermind behind a massive senior prank involving 300 rubber ducks in the principal's office. the legend was right under our noses the whole time.

#6

Image source: Dapper_Pen_4491, freepik The craziest piece of drama was about *me*, and I was too busy being shuttled back and forth between divorced parents every other day to notice. Apparently multiple guys tried to get me to sleep with them, but failed because I was so uninterested in the general HS population that I didn't realize what they were trying to do. This resulted in them feeling personally attacked for whatever reason and spreading rumors that I was sleeping around, which ended up being so wide-spread and violent that we ended up having a whole assembly on harassment, with me having absolutely no idea the assembly was about me to begin with. I only found out years later when I ran into a guy at the grocery store and he apologized to contributing to said rumors about me. I really wish I could adequately describe the look on his face when he realized I actually had no idea what he was talking about.

#7

Image source: jeriTuesday, freepik That a white guy and a black girl were a couple but the administration called them in and told them they couldn't do that. This was a small parochial school in the '80s in southern California.

#8

Image source: Maxwyfe, freepik I went to a local yard sale and recognized the seller as a girl I went to high school with. We chatted. She mentioned the yard sale was due to her divorce and that she was divorcing our high school history teacher with whom she'd had a years long affair - starting in high school - and who she had married very shortly after he divorced his wife very shortly after she graduated high school.

#9

Image source: CStew8585, freepik Our drama teacher in the 8th grade was let go for being inappropriate with students. Everyone went on a rampage when he left and we couldn't understand why he was let go. Found out a few years after high school when he was hitting on me through Facebook messaging and I told my mother. She mentioned that something weird happened when we were in school too and that's why he left. Thanks mum for letting me know! A bit late!

#10

Image source: Fit-Row-2774, grustock Our principal was embezzling quite a bit of money. Ended up on the local news. He had always been an ahole. My friend won the grand prize at the state science fair and brought back a trophy for the school, and he didn't care. No congrats, job well done, nothing. He just didn't care.

#11

Image source: KittySharkWithAHat, ArthurHidden One of the students in our school, the son of a retired police chief, stole a Cessna airplane and flew an uncharted flight from a small airfield outside Toronto to Montreal.

#12

Image source: Banditlouise, pressfoto Elementary school drama. I had two six grade teachers that were co teachers. It was a pilot program. She got pregnant during the year. We found out much later our both married co teachers had a pretty torrid affair. Both of their marriages ended. Unsurprisingl, the woman teacher was fired. Mr Frank, with his not so hidden alcohol drawer was kept on. The 80‘s were crazy.

#13

Image source: skippyist, tonodiaz At a boarding school now famous for covering up mistreatment: a very quiet girl was being preyed on by an employee 10 years her senior. When word got out, she was punished, not him. She got expelled, never got to finish her high school education, and is now married to the former employee, still.

#14

Image source: Honest-Fix-9296, freepik Finding out half the couples were secretly dating each other like it was a whole soap opera behind the scenes, made me realize I really was just there for the homework.

#15

Image source: taurus26, freepik Music Teacher (male) and Drama teacher (male) - (one sleeping with students and the other with a hidden camera in a change room) at my all boys High School. In my primary/elementary school a priest was caught being inappropriate with students 10 years before I was enrolled and caught after I graduated. I thankfully was never a victim. All Catholic schools of course.

#16

Image source: The_Wilbanks, freepik My high-school best buds parents got divorced as we started senior year, they were like the friend groups parents so it was a big deal to us. Seemingly came out of nowhere and I didn't have any idea why until I saw my buddies dad at a Walmart in Colorado like 2 or 3 years after high-school and he explained to me how Will (our friend) and his mom had been intimate. And they are now in a relationship lmao. When his dad found out he just left and moved to Colorado. Crazy.

#17

Image source: writetehcodez, freepik Sadly I’m just joining the club it seems like - music teacher groomed and slept with several students. We would joke that he was sleeping with the drum major, and sadly we were right. She is the one who ultimately blew the whistle.

#18

Image source: Dragon464, wavebreakmedia_micro Male Coach caught a female Coach going down on one of her students.

#19

Image source: phrozen_waffles, EyeEm The rich pretentious kid who always bragged how rich they were, turns out their dad was arrested and jailed for embezzling millions.

#20

Image source: Gorf_the_Magnificent, EyeEm At our first high school reunion (five years), one of our teachers showed up in a bad-fitting wig, got drunk, and sloppily tried to seduce the women. We then realized that he most likely became a teacher because he was attracted to young girls.

#21

Image source: beckichino, Senior man at home on the floor taking guitar lessons freepik Had a music teacher that all of the girls generally avoided because there were rumors that he would try to touch them. I've even heard that some girls tried to report him to the principal but she would just shrug it off. I never had to have his class because of the major I had so never crossed paths with him. 15 years later I see a news article about dude getting arrested and charged for texting inappropriately some of his students. Same school, there was a math teacher that everyone loved because he was basically "friends" with all of the students, I crossed paths with him once because he subbed for my math teacher once and dude just gave off creepy vibes to me. 16 years later dude was fired for "inappropriate behavior" at a field trip. From what I understand he didn't actually try to touch anyone or have inappropriate relations with a student but still. Just to give examples of actual good male teachers at that school (and not blaming the girls or anything because this was a different time when celebrity tabloids mentioned girls dating guys twice their age and it was seen as a "cool mature it girl" thing to do) I had an art teacher that was in his 20s and literally most of the girls would flirt with him and I'm pretty sure a few asked him out. Dude made it a point to never be alone with any student and would physically keep his distance from the girls who would flirt with him and would always tell stories of his girlfriend. Also I had a gym teacher who was in his early 30s and he was considered a good looking guy so a few girls would flirt with him and he would legit shut it down real quick and turned it into class lessons on why girls and guys shouldn't try to have relationships with authority figures.

#22

Image source: VvvlvvV, freepik One of the football coaches was selling steroids to  the team. An english teacher started dating his former student once she begun college. Supposedly, the student reached out to the teacher after graduating.

#23

Image source: nomad_l17, katemangostar The craziest English teacher (female) married the laziest English teacher (male). She would always get slighted by the smallest thing and would refuse to teach us until we as a class apologized. It got so bad that the department head had to intervene though he blamed us and requested we apologize in order to ensure the knowledge she gave would be 'blessed'. Her husband was lazy. He didn't teach us anything including the new exam format which caused the majority of his students to get low marks and drop in rank. We had to complain to the principal before we got a new teacher. He also had a scandal where he dated a 17yo student openly (she was older than age of consent and at the time it wasn't illegal to be in a relationship with a student as it wasn't in the US). The marriage didn't last. Crazy + lazy will never be a good combination. Thank goodness there wasn't any kids involved. Edited a few words for clarity.

#24

Image source: Far-Ad5796, tiko33 Our valedictorian was apparently a jerk that thought hitting his girlfriends was an appropriate communication style.

#25

Image source: Pisum_odoratus, gpointstudio Not long after I started teaching post-secondary, I had a young student in their 20s. They told me they had dropped out of highschool in grade 9, and as I got to know them better, I found out that they were in fact the sister of someone in my own grade, at my own highschool. Turns out the family was ruled with an iron fist, and the parents had kicked them out for a minor infraction (think, going to the movies when they'd been forbidden to do so). They were taken in by someone, and got a job working at our local stock exchange. They were bright and worked their way up a decent pay, doing responsible work. But they were back to school to catchup. They did well, despite not having the foundation, and I marveled over the fact that the sibling had never shown the slightest indication that so much family trauma and misery was going on. Cruel.