When Aaliyah Iglesias was caught vaping at a Texas high school, she didn’t realize how much could be taken from her.
Suddenly, the rest of her high school experience was threatened: being student council president, her role as debate team captain and walking at graduation. Even her college scholarships were at risk. She was sent to the district’s alternative school for 30 days and told she could have faced criminal charges.
Like thousands of other students around the country, she was caught by surveillance equipment that schools have installed to crack down on electronic cigarettes, often without informing students.
So in order to protect the kids…we’re going to put their future prospects in jeopardy with heavy handed zero tolerance policy bs? Throw the fucking vape away and move along jfc
Right. The amount of damage they do to “prevent damage” here is outstanding. Additionally, wouldn’t that money be better spent hiring more teachers?
When I was in high school in the 90s, the school had an area of the campus (outside) where kids could smoke. It was just an obvious thing to have at the time because half the student body smoked anyway.
France, in the 80/90 in high school we smoked outside, in community college we smoked in corridor, and in university we smoked inside classrooms and lecture theatre/hall, incredible :-(
My school had this same thing. You could look out any window facing a certain direction between class, and you’d see a bunch of kids smoking.
Cigarettes were also like $1.25 back then. I hated winter because groups of kids would hotbox in someone’s car and come in smelling super strong, to the point that it was a bit much even for me, a more covert smoker. I can still smell that in my mind.
What’s funny is that the school decided to become a ‘tobacco free campus’ my senior year, so everyone just walked across the street where there was a city bus stop with a huge amount of room for people to stand and wait for a bus and smoked there instead. They basically moved the smoking area across the street.
And to a school back then, that would have probably been just fine. They were a “tobacco free campus” as planned XD
tbf, that’s exactly how freedom is supposed to work. We very specifically don’t want them to actually effectively force the student body to cease all tobacco activities. That’s draconian and should be unacceptable.
I agree, but I also think there has to be more work done on prevention and cessation of teen smoking and vaping. I started smoking when I was 14 and I didn’t quit until I was in my mid-20s. And I’m one of the lucky ones. I was also only able to quit because I worked in an office where literally every other person smoked, so I got plenty of it second-hand.
Second hand just puts you off
It didn’t for me. At least not at first. That whole office was one huge cloud of smoke at all times (and not just cigarette smoke). I was practically chain smoking just by being there.
Yeah, there was a lot more freedom back then. It felt pretty good as a teenager having so much independence. In my school, we could even leave campus during our open periods. At some point, schools started seeing things like that as a liability for them. Can’t help but think things really started to change after Columbine.
To bring that forward a generation, there was a period around 2013-2014 when vaping was brand new and schools hadn’t written any rules yet.
I remember kids vaping in class and some teachers being kinda okay with it, or at least turning a blind eye. Granted, only like 1 or 2 people in the school had vapes.
My high school’s designated smoking area was a stuffy room in the basement with zero ventilation. I’m pretty sure they had to completely demo the walls, floors, and ceilings when they wanted to convert it into a classroom, and it probably still reeked for years.
There was a private school near my house that had something similar. They called it The Dungeon.
Schools like this need to be shut down. Let kids vape and figure things out themselves. If they’re smart enough for college, good let them go.
You’re only teaching them they can’t trust higher ups and government type people.
That’s a good lesson actually. We would be better as a society if more people didn’t blindly trust their government and politicians.
Man. We had Rambo knives at school when I was a kid. Compass fishing line ect… played splitsies during recess. Being a kid sucks now
I couldn’t even count the number of times I rode in the back of a pickup truck when I was a kid. You know who else can’t count it? All the kids who died from doing that and didn’t grow up to comment on the internet how everything is too safe these days. This is the essence of survivor bias.
Plus you know not having universal healthcare means any injury could be a financial deathblow. Which is why we get stories in the news about people having to sue their own families.
I’m in canada. I have Healthcare. Looks like more Rambo knives for me!!! I’ll get you some bubble wrap for your pickup truck.
It wasnt my pickup truck
I work in a public school, and vaping is a big problem. I don’t know what is in the vapes, but when the students come back from the bathroom their eyes are red with dilated pupils, they can barely talk, and they fall asleep at their desk within ten minutes. It makes me nervous how lightly the kids take it.
If it has any visible effect, that ain’t nicotine lmao
Those kids are smoking weed.
damn someone gave them the fent cart
That doesn’t sound like a nicotine vape to me.
