35 High School Scandals That Were The Talk Of The Town Back Then

For most people high school was an innocent time. When life was not so dire, responsibilities not so serious and the future seemed filled with possibilities. Meanwhile, others were going all out in high school, rushing to fill their time with both good and bad experiences. Indiscriminately making rash decisions that some escaped unscathed, while others were unforgettably not so lucky. 

#1

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My high school Civics teacher went inside the school building on the last day of school and was never seen again. There is video footage of him walking into the building from the teacher’s parking lot, but he does not appear on the video footage from the inside of that very entrance. It’s like he literally disappeared while entering the building. He was also my junior and senior year homeroom teacher, and everyone thought it was super weird that he wasn’t in the classroom because he always got there extra early, even for the teachers. Since I knew we had to have attendance submitted to the office or we would all be counted absent, I went down the hall and told one of the other teachers so he could take our attendance.

But yeah, he was never seen or heard from again. The police did a huge investigation and I heard (but I don’t know for sure) that the FBI got involved. As far as I know, he didn’t have any skeletons in his closet, not even a parking ticket, no enemies, no particular reason to disappear. He just suddenly stopped existing best anyone could tell. That was back in 1997.

EDIT: I’m not sharing the details of this case due to hometown politics. I don’t live in the town anymore, but I’m still in touch with a lot of my friends from high school. Some of those friends are police officers and many of the town’s residents don’t want their town known for this. I personally disagree, but I’m being respectful of the overall population’s wishes. If my lack of detail causes you to doubt my story, that is unfortunate, understandable, and well within your rights. I’m not going to provide any more information. Have a good day.

#2

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1) The athletic director and superintendent were embezzling funds from our massive sports program. They were caught because they were exchanging text messages on their school issued phones calling students racial slurs and saying sexist things.
The text messages ended up coming out in court and exposed many teachers’ personal business, including affairs and illnesses, etc.

2) Our school board was being defrauded by a law firm for millions of dollars.

3) The previous superintendent had also stolen from the school district and gotten caught.

Meanwhile, there were several school buildings that were like, crumbling. We were rationing art supplies and sharing books while they were STEALING from us!

4. A really well-liked and popular teacher was criminally charged for sleeping with a student. People were fighting about it for weeks.

#3

It was the mid 90s and It was a huge deal at my Catholic school. The editors of our school news paper were ordered not to print a LBGT article by the administration. They printed the paper with the article included but redacted. They did a sit in in the main hall of the school, Tape over their mouths with censored written on it. 30 years later and I can still see them sitting there. .

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#4

Ultra conservative, very homophobic and xenophobic, super egotistic US government teacher. Encouraged people to debate with him, then when he was losing the debate he’d send the students to the office. He couldn’t be fired because he had tenure and they’d need a really good reason other than him being a super selfish a****t. Not even the teachers liked him.

He bragged about his wife and kids all the time, taught things as if they were undeniable fact because he had documentaries to “prove it,” and it was super easy to distract him from actually teaching because all you had to do was ask him about his life and he’d spend the entire 40-minute lesson talking about…himself.

He left his wife and kids for a man.

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#5

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A chemistry teacher got sacked because after repeatedly warning one particular student about wearing his safety glasses, she taught him a lesson by spraying him in the eyes with a chemical solution.

#6

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Teacher in middle school went out on leave to have a baby. Her replacement was so liked that they hired him on to be a constant teacher’s aid, and if someone called off, he was the first sub for any class.

It was also his first job at a school, right out of university, so he was as young as he could be. A lot of the middle school girls (12-15 years old) looked up to him as a “mature hottie.” I heard some disturbing things.

You can probably see where this is going.

Two girls got into a rather violent fight, clothing was ripped, hair was ripped out, blood was drawn, this wasn’t just knuckles to faces until someone stopped, they were fighting to k**l.

Turns out he was sleeping with both of them, and they both thought they could keep him all to themselves until they turned 18 and got married. So, instead of getting mad at him, they got mad at each other for moving in on what they viewed as “their man.”

Shortly after the fight was stopped, the principal sat them down and asked them to work backwards down the timeline to figure out who started it. So the dude was walked out in handcuffs less than 15 minutes after the fight started.

#7

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14 year old kid slipped in the shower and died. I didn’t know him but sometimes I remind myself of it. Crazy how fragile we can be.

#8

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Baseball coach got fired for making the moves on some of his team members.

This was one of those “so obvious” situations with more red flags than the Chinese embassy.

He was known to shower with the team.

He hosted unchaperoned pizza parties after baseball games at his house and liked to wrestle the players shirtless after showering….

There was an awful lot of wrestling and showering involved.

This was back in the 1980s. Of course there was no announcement or communication. He just “wasn’t there anymore” one Monday morning and nobody said a word.

#9

A kid k**led himself after being bullied for being gay.
One of the girls who bullied him is now a sports reporter and reality show host.
Every time I see her on TV I gag.

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#10

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Married Science teacher/girl’s basketball coach was sleeping with a senior on the bball team. He later divorced and then married the senior. Then he went on to become the county’s school superintendent.

#11

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Me, having a baby senior year. The scandal lives rent free in my home.

#12

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There was one gal who cheated on her senior chemistry finals and snapchatted the answers to her story. Someone snitched and she got suspended. The ironic thing is that she had the reputation of being like the A+ student and I think was close to valedictorian. She was actually supposed to speak at graduation but they didn’t let her.

#13

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The cheerleader and math teacher that had a thing going on. They very openly hung out and flirted during school. The kids were aware they were seeing each other outside of school, not sure if the adults knew. He married her the day she turned 18, *while she was still a student*.

The shocking part? There was no scandal. No one said a f*****g thing about it, no consequences for the teacher at all.

#14

1994/1995 my last year of highschool, I had a classmate who aspired to be in politics. He wore a business suit and tie every day to school (this was a public HS, we didn’t wear uniforms) Anyway, he was a major conservative in a very liberal leaning area. His personalized license plates on his car were some variation of REPUBLICAN, like RPBLICN. At least once a week his plates were removed from his car as a prank and hidden around campus for him to find. It pissed him off obviously but most of us just found it hilarious. ¯⁠⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯.

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#15

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My American History teacher was having an affair with his teacher’s aid. He even played some role in getting her several college scholarships she didn’t earn. This all came out mid semester. When everyone found out and it was revealed to his family, he committed s*****e by sitting in his car in his garage with the engine running. We had a sub the rest of the semester. I’ve always felt like there was more to the story that never came out. It was nuts though.

#16

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One of my favorite teachers almost got fired because there were two girls fighting & he pulled them apart by pulling their hair lmao 😂he walked them to the office by their hair, he was old already!

#17

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This girl had a baby and then decided to throw it in the dumpster. She never got in trouble but isn’t alive today, by her own doing. Terribly sad for everyone around her.

#18

This was back in 1981/82. Our married assistant principal was having an affair with a student, and everyone knew it.

Once she graduated, he left his wife, moved in with the former student, and got her a job at the school.

Everyone was stunned that not only did he keep his job, but he was able to get her a job.

It finally came to light that the principal was stealing money from the school budget, and the assistant principal was blackmailing him.

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#19

I was in HS in the 1970s, and the big scandal that I still remember is the affair the boys’ swim and water polo team head coach was having with one of the swimmers on the girls’ team. Everyone knew about it, and I do mean everyone; it was one of those open secrets. I’m sure even people in the administration knew it, but since our swimming and water polo teams were very successful, they looked the other way.

There was one exception to the “everyone knew about it” though: The coach’s wife. My brother, who was on the water polo and diving teams, was present when she found out and stormed into the pool area during practice in a crying and screaming rage. She even dragged their 2 young sons along with her. From what my brother told me, it was one hell of an ugly scene.

His wife eventually divorced him and — hopefully — took him to the cleaners financially. He later married the girl from the swim team. I think they got divorced later, too, but I don’t recall how many years they lasted.

[EDIT] I forgot to mention that the wife was absolutely gorgeous, and by all accounts a genuinely nice person.

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#20

The daughter of the Driver’s Ed teacher/D. A. R. E. representative totalling her dad’s new sports car while very drunk.

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#21

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A girl poured cologne in the music teacher’s water bottle and dude almost died.

#22

We had a bmx bike riding show held in our gym for some self-esteem message, and they made an announcement at the beginning to the tune of “We are riding full speed in the hallway before entering the gym so we can do our tricks. We don’t have breaks on our bikes, so do not cross in front of that door for any reason.” They made the announcement a couple times because they were so worried about a student not listening. The show came to a halt when the yearbook teacher got absolutely rammed when she crossed in front of the door to get a better picture. Someone got it on video and put the clip to “wrecking ball”… it went viral around our school.

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#23

Beginning of my junior year we had a new religion teacher fresh out of college, very early 20s, her first teaching job. Small catholic school, I had her for a “morality and ethics” class. She was very nice but obviously socially awkward, probably never had a boyfriend, let us walk all over her just so we would all like her. We come back from winter break and she’s gone. No explanation from the staff or the teacher that replaced her. In the next few days through the rumor mill we all learned she had been having a sexual relationship with a senior. Not only that, he had been planning a school shooting event meticulously. Notebooks of plans, hit lists, maps, etc. He told one of his friends who immediately alerted the police and he was arrested. They found plenty of evidence at his home to confirm all of this including multiple weapons. The really wild part is the teacher was aware and part of this plan… thank god for his friend.

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#24

3 sixth formers stole a fist sized lump of sodium from the chemistry lab and flushed it down their dorm toilet. They were lucky the ensuing fireball didn’t k**l them. The 1st lad came back to school 6 months later and was still.wearing a hat to cover the patchy hair regrowth. The other 2 took longer to recover. I don’t actually remember seeing them again…

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#25

Female wrestling champion was targeted with bigoted slurs painted all over the school. She was openly gay and this was a very liberal town, so it was odd. It made the news and she claimed she was jumped by masked individuals. Police uncovered she made the whole thing up. She was arrested for filing a false police report and vandalizing the school.

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#26

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The disappearance of all the mouse trackballs from the computer lab.

#27

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Football coach/teacher freaked out and ripped a door off its hinges when a student wrote a short story about a clown that m******d all his clown-students, (was obviously a story about the teacher).

#28

I didn’t perpetrate this, but a kid gave laxatives to a pig, greased it up and released it in to the commons area during the middle of lunch hour.

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#29

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My high school had an awesome computer club especially for the 90s. But it was d**n hard to get into. I tried constantly with no luck. In my senior year, the teacher in charge of it and some students were arrested for counterfeiting money. The older I get, the more I can’t understand why an adult would team up with teenagers to do such a thing.

#30

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The day of the bloody doorknobs.

One random day, the bell rang and we all poured into the hallways like normal, but pretty quickly it was apparent that nothing was normal.

Someone had taped used maxi pads to every single doorknob. At least 50 used pads covering every conceivable entry point. So many that you could actually smell them.

Needless to say, this set the crowd of teenagers into a frenzy. Teachers had a hell of time reigning them in while also being unwilling to touch the pads. After what seemed like forever (probably less than 3 minutes), a janitor appeared wearing gloves and pushing a trash cart. He unceremoniously went door by door, yanking the crusty pads off the handles, spritzing with some spray and half heartedly wiping it before moving down the hall to the next door. He looked like it was just a normal day, when we all knew it wasn’t.

The mystery naturally spread like wildfire. This was 1995, so the school didn’t have security cameras yet and as far as I’m aware, the culprit was never discovered, never claimed responsibility, or made any mention of a ‘message’ or such. Speculation raged, with everything from a form of student protest, to a cry for attention, to a mentally ill kid playing a prank.

The amount of pads used required a good bit of ‘saving up’ to prepare, and it was naturally assumed the culprit was a girl but nothing definitive was ever learned.

We all figured it was some sort of feminist statement (height of girl power era) that they’d eventually release some sort of manifesto or other ‘here’s why that happened’ type deal… but silence was all that followed.

#31

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We had two guys from school rob a Taco Bell and one of them ended up murdering another student who had been working that night.
A good kid lost his life, a buddy of ours got 25 to L and the dude who committed the murder got life without parole.
Another kid who was the “get away driver” went on the run for almost 15 years.
It was just a messed up situation all the way around. So many heart broken parents, family members and friends.

#32

There was a fight with these two huge guys just pummeling the s**t out of each other with a massive circle of kids around them watching, when suddenly a short little shadow ran into the fight. My friend and I turned to each other and said at the same time, “Was that Mr. Chung?”

Mr. Chung was the shortest, roundest little pacifist you ever did see, but I’ll be damned if he didn’t somehow get these two huge guys pulled apart! 🤣.

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#33

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I was the scandal.

Every day at school a notice would be read “Please return the screws from the desks, you will not get in trouble, leave them at the office.”

It was me. I was unscrewing and stealing all the desk screws…

I had a pencil case full of screws… and no desk lid was attached solidly to a desk. It was my way of acting out due to lots of bad stuff going on.

#34

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In high school we got these new laptop carts. Basically carts on wheels to hold laptops + a printer that you could roll around to different classrooms. A teacher in another room printed her emails on the cart printer by mistake. I picked them up thinking it was my paper. It was NOT.

It was 6 pages of spicy a*s emails between the teacher and principal, both married, and not to each other! They were NASTY yall.

Edit: I thought it was the teacher who printed them, but I found out later it was a kid in her class snooping on her computer when she left the room. He was trying to print them so he could show everyone.

#35

My junior year of high school, a kid stabbed 6 students and tried to k**l himself. I could have been stabbed since my weightlifting partner was. My friend told me to wait a minute for him before we headed to the locker room. Saved my life. (Mountain View Stabbing November 2016,).

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