This one happened just a week ago for me. It was prom weekend, and everyone was having a good time. However, some senior decided to draw graffiti on the school. Now, this is a private school, so stuff like this is an abnormal occurrence, so when it happened, everyone was surprised. We got a whole lecture about how we should own up to our wrongdoings, etc etc. Well, a couple of days later, we found out who it was. It turned out to be some nerdy kid who was born in Russia that a ton of people bullied. He was into Pokémon and other “nerdy” things like that. It came as a surprise to everyone in the school (and me) as he wasn’t considered a “bad kid” at all - he was just considered “out there.” Needless to say, he was expelled, and thus he ruined his entire future just so he could draw penises on the school.
I went to an all-male Catholic high school; there was an all-female school a few miles away. Several of my classmates streaked through the halls of the girls’ school one day, while it was in session, wearing nothing but masks and sneakers. They got caught, of course, and they all got suspended for several days; several of them, who were also officers in Student Council, were forced to resign their positions.
(Not a big scandal, in the grand scheme of things, I suppose.)
In terms of what the school itself did, they just expelled him; no charges were pressed.
However, since it’s nearing summer vacation and the end of the school year, he can’t get his high school diploma, and so can’t get into his dream college (let alone any college at all), so thus he can’t get into the career field he wanted to be in, and will probably just have to work a bunch of part-time jobs (though even those jobs will be hard to come by for him).
So, to answer your question, it was moreso the side effects of the expulstion and the timing of it that ruined his future.
This is like one of those threads where a homeless guy gets 20 years for stealing a sandwich, while a corrupt bank CEO gets 6 months for stealing billions. Ok, not that extreme - but it seems like exposing your actual penis to a group of young girls should attract a more severe sentence than a buliied kid acting out by drawing penises on a wall.
Oh, I went to a tiny college in Michigan, so not much, just the President of the school murdering his daughter-in-law… who was cheating on her husband with his father.
My high school must have been boring and/or I’m old because I can’t remember anything interesting scandal-wise.
My kid’s high school had an incident with a teacher trading test grades to a student in exchange for oral sex. Which she immediately regretted and went to the authorities and said teacher was arrested.
FWIW, most of my classmates were what I’d describe as upper-middle-class; a lot of them were the sons of various business executives in Green Bay. So, yeah, likely a little privileged.
FWIW #2: I’m the same age (give or take a few weeks) as Brett Kavanaugh. When, during his confirmation hearings for the Supreme Court, lots of stories came out about the parties and activities that he and his friends regularly engaged in, I thought to myself, “damn, that sounds a lot like the guys in my high school.” (I was a nerd and a social outcast, so I was never invited to those parties.)
Someday there will be a gray bearded stick of a man, his ragged clothes hanging off of him. Huddled against a wall, shaking in the cold. He’ll say to any one who’ll listen: “I wish I hadn’t drawn that penis”.
My school was pretty rough; but the closest thing to a scandal is just how shitty everyone’e grades were.
One anecdote though, is that me and a few friends used to make bombs (though I was not involved in the construction). We blew them up in the playground after making people clear the area. When the teachers found out, the main guy was not even suspended or anything. This was all prior to terrorism being a thing in the public consciousness though.
ETA: Obviously it was very stupid, not claiming it was a sensible hobby.
Bingo. It was kind of an awkward run-on sentence any way I phrased it. Whole thing stunk, and the school and the town were so small everyone knew everyone.
Yeah, everyone thought it was the dad… he also had the money and the clout of the college behind him to get the local police chief to smooth things over: “Well, we certainly didn’t think there was any need for an investiga… oops, too late, body’s been cremated.”
I recommend the book. It’s quite the True Crime tale… (I think the President is the logical suspect in the book, too).
At the end of the school year, the high school special-ed teacher had a pool party for her students at her home. During the party, they ran out of snacks, so she went to the store to buy more. When she got home she found her husband having sex with one of the students. She immediately called the cops, and the husband was arrested. I don’t recall what the outcome of his criminal case was, but she did divorce him soon after.
My school’s librarian committed suicide. Apparently, domestic issues. Or maybe something in the water – of the 50 boys in my graduating class, four have committed suicide.
Senior year: Undercover narcs enrolled at the school busted about 14 kids for selling drugs. All were
kinda-expelled. Not sure what the exact term is… expelled, but only until the end of the school year. They were allowed to come back the following fall if they weren’t seniors that year.
Year after I graduated: Band teacher got caught boinking an underage flute player. Forced to resign. No criminal charges. Got a new job at a community college. The 80s were a different time.
3 years after I graduated. Two words… Traci Lords. She was a freshman when I was a senior. While she had dropped out two years earlier, just the fact that it was our school made it an ongoing topic of gossip.