Hmm...sounds like you have it pretty rough, man. I went to two different high schools, one in the deep south and one in urban Virginia. So, as you can imagine, there were different problems with each.

In Virginia I saw a lot of the same problems you talk about. Underage drinking, especially on campus, was a big one. The drug scene was mostly taken care of outside of school, but there were occasional deals during school hours. The biggest thing was fighting between the "groups". We mostly saw gang wars between black people and latinos. There was one between the whites and the blacks, though. It sort of cycled around my freshman year; you never knew who the next target was, or where the next fight was going to be.

My sophomore and junior year were spent in the deep south, in a rural town and a very small school. The biggest thing there were alcohol and tobacco products on campus. With a total school population of around 500 it was easier for them to crack down security-wise, though. However, there were a few racial problems because the kids were predominantly white, and most were prejudiced. I never saw a black family stay in the school district for more than a few years at a time until I got older.

My senior year I was back in Virginia, and the problems I mentioned previously were pretty much stamped out. Most of the prejudice and fighting was relegated to sub-groups, between the goths and hardcore punks, emos and preps, etc. It was really ridiculous, but even the cheerleaders had to pick on people. They tried to trashcan me because I wore a trench coat and combat boots. Apparently dressing in black makes you a goth. To clarify, our group called itself the Trench Coat Mafia because most of our number owned trenchies, and we didn't identify ourselves as any of the subgroups. We just wore what we wanted and watched each others' backs because of all the intra-group and inter-group fighting.

Personally, I think it's ridiculous that so much labeling, stereotyping, and prejudice is still around. Even in college I find it impossible to escape. But, no, I don't wear the trench anymore. Even blue jeans and a tank top can incite some pretty small minded comments. Bother...

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Corruption is rampart in all levels of High School. I got in a bit of trouble at school for a website I was running. Despite them completely ignoring the disclaimer, I got in a bunch of trouble.

I got called in to the office, where the Principle and Sheriff were waiting for me. I claimed that they were violating my 1st amendment rights, and the principle just looked at me and said, "When we come to school, we leave the constitution at the front door." This is downright blasphemy!

I went to a pretty small school, but the students were VERY open about their activities, even to teachers. The school board played favoritism with their children whom were in the school. It was all very discouraging. When I have children I'll either home-school them or be very selective with a private school.

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My school is pretty good, it is one of Brisbane's best. We have no gun, knife, or bomb issues at all, if someone came in with a knife the school would probably plunge into lockdown mode and the police would come and arrest that individual, but it has never happened.

Alcohol is banned as well, noone takes it in. And fights do occur, but they don't ever get that bad...

But last year we did have a major issue with people going into Queen St Mall, and smoking and doing other underage or illegal stuff. I remember the friday before, I was on the council bus, and a heap of them were at the back smoking, plain as day. I was surprised they weren't kicked off the bus.

But I know some other schools do have crime problems, at some, kids take knifes to school not to fight, but for protection from all the really bad bad kiddies running around.

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Here at our school only has few fights occasionally because of annoying people that doesn't want to stfu or when someone said something that other person doesn't like. We have a SRO (Student Rep Officer) or something like that at our school to keep violence to an minimum. Alcohol isn't a big issue, but drugs is once in awhile if someone brought some to school and get caught.

Our school buys stuff that we don't even need, doesn't fix anything that really needs to be fix, charge us things that needs to be "free", and other crap that they do just to get money from us. I think our school acts like it's poor, but not actually is.

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ok, i don't know what is happening at your schools, but it must be a one in a million.

i attend the best high school in australia (james ruse), and NONE of these things happen there. just one street away from us, there is another high school: cumberland high. now THEY are worse: a non-selective high school, they were on the news last year for a big bash-up. i don't know if these things happen EVEN there. drugs, alchohol... i have never been exposed to these things throughout my high school life.

these things definitely do not happen in the better, selective high schools.

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