Today, like the past few days, really hurt my
faith in modern
high school society.
To set the background, we had bomb threats at our school Friday of last week, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. During a bomb threat, all students and teachers have to evacuate the building and go to the stadium. Naturally, the weather frowned upon us and we had to stand outside in the rain for hours while the police searched the building extensively. On Monday it was really pouring, so we got to sit on the school buses that were parked on the far side of the lot. So, rather than being wet and miserable, we were cramped and miserable.
People have occasionally used such bomb threats at my school to get out of class for a while. The more sadistic ones lay out of school and call in their threats from a pay phone on a rainy day to punish their classmates. These recent bomb threats were mostly notes dropped in the hallway. Friday's was jotted on a bathroom wall. Of course, the administration has to take all of them seriously.
Today there were rumours of someone "going Columbine" during the first lunch period. Some people even talked about a hit list with all the athletes on it.
There were armed police officers standing at all corners of the cafeteria. I heard some students later recounting harassment by these cops. One officer put his hand on his gun when a student wearing a trenchcoat got out of his seat.
Of course, first lunch went by without incident. All the paranoia and rumours amounted to nothing.