The high school rumor mill always seemed to be in full swing.
A few hundred teenagers crammed into one or two buildings was apparently ideal conditions for all sorts of steamy stories and imagined thrills to surface every week or so.
By and large, these stories were false. Or at the very least, wildly embellished.
But every once in awhile, one of them turned out to be true. And that was enough to make us believe all the other tales that flew around the hallways.
Redditor Le_Bayou_Cochon apparently wanted to separate fact from fiction.
He asked:
“What high school conspiracy turned out to be true at your school?”
Of course, sexual rumors were a common go-to.
“There were rumors about a music teacher and a student, but they were both pretty dramatic people and did very little to dismiss the talk. So half the school wanted to believe it for the salacious thrill and half just waved it off as attention seeking and sh**-talking.”
“Teacher got canned without explanation. Most of us just figured it was budget-related. A math teacher filled in on his music/theater roles.”
“Years later I randomly caught up with the student and she said the rumors were true, she freaked out and tried to end things to shake off the reputation, and eventually the teacher showed up trashed and naked on her family’s front lawn, in the rain, yelling out for her.”
“Like a really fu**ed-up version of John Cusack from Say Anything but with less boombox and more drenched wang.” — Dangercakes13
This rumor spanned more than one school.
“That our IT teacher slept with his students. He was attractive, young, friendly etc, then suddenly a rumour went around the school that he was sleeping with a 6th former (aged 17/18).”
“He was suspended for a while but then ‘decided to leave’ after he was ‘cleared’ of wrongdoing.”
“He got a new job at my cousins high school across town…he did it again there. Got caught with another 17 year old and was fired shortly after.” — Hot_potatoos
In a couple cases, the ending was rather unexpected.
“Two of the teachers ‘hooking up’ on a Europe class trip. Gone for a week, came back and the rumours started.”
“Two weeks later a rumour started he got divorced.”
“Last week of school they were spotted at a restaurant together.”
“Looked em up a couple years after graduating. They’re married.” — Gone_cognito
“That one of the cheerleaders was dating one of the teachers (in his 40s). A year after graduation, they got married and had a baby. Still together 11 years later.” — Trailmix
Unfortunately, some other rumors were gruesome.
“There was a girl freshman year who went missing. She ended up being found dead in the river. There were rumors that she was seen on a bridge with her boyfriend the day she went missing. Nothing was ever found and they assumed it was suicide/ an accident.”
“Fast forward 25 years and the boyfriend murdered his best friend of several decades, set a fire to cover it up, and went on the run. Couple days later he killed a woman at a rest stop in the bathroom to steal her car.”
“They reopened the case about the high school girlfriend. That rumor was correct all along. He will be in prison the rest of his life.” — pomegranatepants99
And some were alarming.
“Lead in the water.”
“Our high school tap water was dark brown and we weren’t allowed to bring our own waterbottles or get filtered water from the cafeteria without paying $3. We sent hundreds of emails asking the school board to look into it, but they said it was fine.”
“In my senior year, a student did a science fair project on the illegal amount of lead in the tap water, forcing the school to investigate and fix all the taps.” — xJaneyDoe
This example was intriguing—and terrible.
“I attended a newly opened high school that apparently used to be a school for troubled kids. Someone told me there were padded rooms somewhere in the school so I skipped lunch with a friend one day to walk the halls and find them!”
“They did exist, but by next year they were renovated into offices and storage rooms. I thought that was pretty interesting and seriously wondered what went on there before it was turned into a ‘normal’ high school.” — E-macularius
One school was filled with surprises.
Two to be exact.
“That there were tunnels under the school that led to a hidden pool.”
“Confirmed by my father who was a maintenance man for the school district. The tunnels were just utility tunnels, the pool is below the gym floor and was abandoned due to financial reasons.” — pondcypress
In one case, someone tried to hide the past.
“My old math teacher was a WWF wrestler, i recognized him from my childhood days channel surfing and couldn’t find anything about him on google, but i was so sure it was him I just asked.”
“I was right lmao” — TheTastySpoonicorn
This one sounds straight out of a movie.
“My history teacher/tennis coach made moonshine and hosted cock fights in his barn. I ended up becoming friends with his son and it was all true.” — m011yRadar
As does this one.
“That my high school history teacher was putting whiskey in the 2-liter bottle of Pepsi he carried around everyday.”
“He was caught trying to buy liquor for some senior girls and it resulted in a car chase we all watched. The police had to pull out the spike strips to catch him.” — Tylerurby
And finally, some quick thinking, heroic teachers.
“Due to budget cuts or something all of our metal and woodwork shop machines were to be taken away and replaced with worse versions. The shop teachers and drama teachers that were in the building at the time didn’t like this idea, so they hid all the machines in a false wall somewhere in the building.”
“The people came to pick them up and they told them that people had already come to pick them up and that they were late. They did some looking around and couldn’t find the machines and gave up. A few years and 1 principle later they brought the machines back out from behind the walls.”
“And that’s how the smallest high school of our district with only around 450 students became the best school in the district to learn metal and woodwork.” — imfamuspants
If these are true, there’s no knowing which of the rumors you wrote off in high school may have actually been true too.
