# What was YOUR school scandal? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [May 10, 2021, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-school-scandal/941728 "2021-05-10T02:07:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2021, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-school-scandal/941728/81 "2021-05-11T15:18:10Z")
If there were any scandals at my high school, I didn’t hear about them. On the other hand, I went to Penn State in the 1980s, so… yeah, definitely some stuff going on there we all learned about later. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2021, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-school-scandal/941728/82 "2021-05-11T15:37:21Z")
I’ve been at my high school for 35+ years. In that time we’ve seen: Male teacher sleeping with female student - check Female teacher sleeping with both male and female students - check Male gym teacher marrying 2 TAs after graduation (sequentially, not simultaneously) - check Head of the teacher’s union busted for molesting his sons - check Science teacher snapping mid-class, throwing lab equipment at a student and walking out, never to return - check Baptist parents going nuts over an English textbook they called “satanic” - check (That made statewide news.) Then there was the homeless man who hung himself in the Ag area one night. Came to school early the next morning to find the whole back half of the school taped off as a potential crime scene. Interesting times. ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2021, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-school-scandal/941728/83 "2021-05-11T16:02:55Z")
This is mild compared to some but my grade school band teacher in Arizona was discharged for slapping a student. I did not witness the incident but I knew the kid and he most likely deserved it. The teacher’s name was Richard [LastName] and years later when I was in Southern California a staple at events in the area, dances and such, was “Dick [LastName] and his orchestra.” Don’t know if it was the same fellow or not but I hope things worked out for him – for programs he had us singing three- and four-part harmony, far beyond your usual grade school program. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2021, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-school-scandal/941728/84 "2021-05-11T16:09:42Z")
> [@DesertDog](#): > > This is mild compared to some but my grade school band teacher in Arizona was discharged for slapping a student. I did not witness the incident but I knew the kid and he most likely deserved it When was this? About the 9th grade a history teacher grabbed the biggest asshole bully kid in the school after the kid smacked someone else in the head with a chunk of metal from shop class. We were in a big room with three classes there to listen to some kind of lecture. That teacher dragged him out in the hallway where we could see him smack this kid around and put the fear of god in him. The history teachers were mostly former jocks who got a history degree so they could teach and coach athletics. Nobody wanted to mess with this guy who was also the wrestling coach, and everybody sort of silently applauded when he dragged the kid back inside and tossed him into a seat in the corner, and then deked a swat with his hand to see the kid recoil. This was about 1971. ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2021, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-school-scandal/941728/85 "2021-05-11T16:22:43Z")
'Twas 1962 or '63. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2021, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-school-scandal/941728/86 "2021-05-11T16:25:53Z")
Wow. They actually cared back then? Maybe the slap was all they would talk about. ---
**Author:** ![Saintly\_Loser](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saintly_loser/32/4045_2.png) [@Saintly\_Loser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saintly_Loser)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2021, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-school-scandal/941728/87 "2021-05-11T16:54:38Z")
> [@DesertDog](#): > > This is mild compared to some but my grade school band teacher in Arizona was discharged for slapping a student. There were no instances of corporal punishment when I was in high school. Elementary school (Catholic parochial school, run by an order of nuns) was a very different story. Mild corporal punishment was considered unremarkable back then, and a legitimate pedagogical tool. ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2021, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-school-scandal/941728/88 "2021-05-11T16:58:54Z")
I think perhaps it was the spontaneous haull of and smack him part. We did have paddles – with holes, naturally – wielded by the PE teachers but this was without a kangaroo trial. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2021, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-school-scandal/941728/89 "2021-05-11T17:09:56Z")
Awful lot of Band/Music teachers being mentioned. What up with that??? Scandal in MY school? No comment. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2021, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-school-scandal/941728/90 "2021-05-11T17:19:27Z")
The yearbook team decided to do an atomic bomb themed yearbook in 1984, which didn’t go over well with some people, their complaints making the Atlanta local news. ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2021, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-school-scandal/941728/91 "2021-05-11T17:22:10Z")
A silly one I remembered: A popular guy who was running for class president gave a speech to the senior class. It contained the phrase, “I don’t give a SHIT-SKI about” blah blah blah. I guess he thought appending -ski to the end of the word would clear him, but the administration was not amused. Now that makes me think of Eric from That Seventies Show calling his sister a “Bitch…” (notices his dad standing right behind him) “…a-roonie-toonie.” ---
**Author:** ![Filbert](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/filbert/32/3433_2.png) [@Filbert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Filbert)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2021, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-school-scandal/941728/92 "2021-05-11T17:25:06Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > I’ve been at my high school for 35+ years. In that time we’ve seen: Aw, you keep going! Your English is getting really good, I’m sure you’ll graduate soon 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Ike\_Witt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ike_witt/32/283_2.png) [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2021, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-school-scandal/941728/93 "2021-05-11T17:29:26Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > Male gym teacher marrying 2 TAs after graduation (sequentially, not simultaneously) - check Please be sure to let us know if that simultaneous box gets checked. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2021, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-school-scandal/941728/94 "2021-05-11T17:41:47Z")
> [@Ashtura](#): > > just viscous teenage gossip…Almost certainly a total lie. Sure, but accusations like that can stick. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2021, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-school-scandal/941728/95 "2021-05-11T18:01:53Z")
A year or so after I moved away, a high school teacher died of a drug overdose. While I was in elementary school (mid-1970s), the older brother of a classmate was shot by another student at the high school. ---
**Author:** ![ctnguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@ctnguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ctnguy)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2021, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-school-scandal/941728/96 "2021-05-11T18:31:17Z")
While I was there, I guess the biggest scandal was a couple of my classmates getting caught shooting up (heroin) behind the library. A few years after I finished school, a father of a student shot his ex-wife’s new partner just outside the school gates. I saw it reported in the following day’s newspaper under the headline “Shooting at top city school”. Knowing the attitudes of the people who ran that school, their horror at the shooting would probably have been mixed with a little smugness at being described as a “top city school”. ---
**Author:** ![FlikTheBlue](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fliktheblue/32/10972_2.png) [@FlikTheBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlikTheBlue)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2021, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-school-scandal/941728/97 "2021-05-11T18:46:03Z")
Our high school principal was known to keep a bottle of liquor in his desk and drink from it throughout the day. ---
**Author:** ![Saintly\_Loser](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saintly_loser/32/4045_2.png) [@Saintly\_Loser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saintly_Loser)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2021, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-school-scandal/941728/98 "2021-05-11T18:55:29Z")
That’s not scandalous. I mean, only _one_ teacher/administrator at your school had a bottle in his desk? Please. That’s nothing. ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2021, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-school-scandal/941728/99 "2021-05-11T19:48:20Z")
I remember three scandals from my time in grammar school: (the mildest one) A guy got expelled after having been caught with cannabis at the schoolyard. (a much more serious one) When I was in 7th grade, we had a young German teacher who was very popular. We all liked her. Turned out that she liked her students too much, after it was revealed that she invited some of her 8 graders to her home and had sex with them. It all was hush-hush and never official, but we knew from the guys in her class that it was true. She quickly vanished mid-school year. (the most horrifying) A student from my school, I think he was just 17 years old, killed his own mother. I don’t remember the details, but it was a convoluted and grim story that made national headlines. ---
**Author:** ![Deeg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/deeg/32/2955_2.png) [@Deeg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deeg)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2021, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-school-scandal/941728/100 "2021-05-11T20:26:47Z")
We need a poll to vote for the best scandal. My vote would go to the nookie in the restroom stall. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-school-scandal/941728.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-school-scandal/941728.md?page=6)