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
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 wife and I went to Europe (from the US) in 2018 (Italy, and Spain) and one of the most shocking things of the whole trip was just how much people in Europe smoke. Like EVERYWHERE, while we were in Spain we got to see the final MotoGP race of the season, and it was like being taken back 25 years when smoking was allowed inside restaurants etc… Everyone around us was smoking and I really didn’t care for that!
The rest of our trip was absolutely amazing!
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
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.
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.
Educational institutions deciding to actively police students just 'cause is a load of BS.
Who died and made them king over children?
Unfortunately in the United States, the primary school system is more of a babysitting service than it is an actual educational institution.
And the school to prison pipeline is expanded. Absolutely sickening.
