Growing up, teachers and administrators always warned you that the more you screw around in school, the better a chance you have of getting thrown out.
For many students, the disciplinary line goes detention, suspension, expulsion. But, how many of us actually end up getting expelled? As it turns out, there are tons of people who have been totally kicked to the curb by schools and administration.
Recently, Reddit user u/bananapeel12329 asked other users to share the reason they were thrown out of school.
Surprisingly, people were honest.
1.
Told my classmates the dog treats I brought were jerky. Everyone including a couple from out sister class and the teachers ate them.
2.
I went to a private Christian University, and I have a friend who got expelled for supposedly exorcizing a demon out of someone in the middle of a wide open courtyard.
3.
Lightsaber battle.
My friends and I aranged a giant lightsaber battle on the last day of my sophmore year of high school. It was a huge hit with the students, but the faculty wasn’t thrilled.
Being a private school, they felt it hurt their image and singled me out as the ring-leader. On my first day back after the summer I was put on academic probation and expelled about a week later for “profanity”.
Went to public school for my junior and senior year.
Totally worth it.
4.
My friend and I stole a girl’s reading book, singing the edges of the cover so it would look like “lost pirate booty,” and hid it in the art room. Then we used three rolls of masking tape to create a 3D spiral “maze” of stickiness that criss-crossed the room, and gave the girl a singed-edged “pirate map” to locate her book. She rolled her eyes at us, clambered through the tape-maze, and retrieved her book, calling us “dorks” and laughing.
However, a teacher discovered the taped-up art room before we had a chance to take it down. My friend and I were called to the principal. I figured we were going to get in some trouble to wasting tape, or possibly suspended for using a lighter inside school.
Nope.
The principal explained that we had engaged in “burning books” which was a Nazi behaviour. When we tried to explain how our edge-singing was merely decorative, she argued that any non-Nazi interpretation was obviously a lie, because she had seen with her own eyes very clearly that we had used masking tape to create a giant swastika in the art room. “A swastika? No, it’s just a big vortex of tape! It’s…uh, a maze.”
This wasn’t a “final straw” type situation. Neither my friend nor I had ever, ever done anything before that could be somehow construed as Nazi-positive. We had no interest in Nazis, weren’t currently studying Nazis, and had no sympathy for Nazi thought.
We had, however, neglected to know much about the book we’d taken from the girl. She was in a different English class than we were, and was reading a book we didn’t know. It turned out to be “Night” by Elie Wiesel, a first-person account of living through the Nazi Holocaust.
So from our point of view we were screwing around, wasting tape and being silly “pirates.” But from the principal’s point of view we had desecrated a book about the holocaust, and created a giant masking tape swastika in the art room. Oh, and the girl we had stolen the book from? She was Jewish. So was the principal.
We were subjected to a long uncomfortable monologue about the horrors the principal’s family had suffered trying to escape the Holocaust. At the end of it we made the appropriate noises of shock and contrition, and once again tried to explain how it really was a big misunderstanding, and that our actions were certainly dumb and irresponsible but not anti-Semitic.
But the next thing that happened was we were walked to our lockers andtold to empty them. Our parents were called to pick us up. We were no longer welcome on the school property. The board of education would assist us in trying to find new placement at different schools so we could complete the eighth grade elsewhere.
So that’s why I was expelled. The one and only time in my life I was ever accused of being an accidental Nazi.
5.
I had a girl in my Catholic high school get expelled for getting pregnant, but her boyfriend who admitted it was his was allowed to stay.
6.
Not me, but my brother gotexpelled for using a vocabulary word correctly in a sentence.
For context, it was not that long after Columbine, and people were overreacting to every little thing. My brother was not a bad kid, but was a bullied kid with a smart mouth. He had a history of making “threats” (read: he once told another kid he was going to eat his grandchildren).
Long story short, it was English class, and the teacher called on him and asked him to use the word “retribution” in a sentence. He said something to the effect of “I will have retribution on those who have wronged me.” School took it as a threat and with his past record, he was expelled.
7.
Was watching porn in the back of the class with acouple of mates, we were 14 and it was religion period. Half way through the volume randomly went up and you could hear fuck me daddy while the teacher was reading Quran.
8.
I skipped school for sports day to study for university entrance exams, got expelled from school in my final month for doing this. It suited me fine, more time to cram.
9.
Okay so I was expelled twice from my school, both events were 50/50 my fault. First time I was expelled I was in the changing rooms after gym class and my friend told me he noticed some guy putting my jacket in a locker, now this isn’t your average US high school locker with.. you know.. a lock .. No. Imagine the “Worst toilet in Scotland” scene from Trainspotting, except this was the worst locker in Scotland. After gym class people regularly pissed into said lockers and stuffed food inside them which was left for so long that it had decomposed by the time anybody actually got them opened. The locker my jacket had been stuffed in had the door kicked in and bent in such a way that I couldn’t open it outwards, but my jacket was so thicc I couldn’t pull it out or open the locker inwards. A friend suggested kicking it in some more to open it, I refused and said I’d get a teacher to help out which spooked the guy who stuffed it in there, so he offered to kick it. He went at this locker with his boots like he was a LA cop in 90’s America and he had just ran into Rodney King on the street but it still didn’t budge. Eventually everybody left so I was there by myself so I braced myself against the locker and pulled it as hard as I could and the locker popped out of it’s hinges (These lockers were already fucked up from years of abuse and literally nobody used them anyway) so I was left with the door in my hands, I put my jacket on, turn around and the head teacher and an entourage of other teachers were staring back at me. Apparently the sound of the dude kicking the locker sounded suspiciously like King Kong beating his dick against a bongo drum at a rock concert which lead them to investigate. I was promptly dragged to the office, didn’t get a chance to explain myself, expelled. I still don’t think I deserved it.
The second time involved me stealing some shit and almost killing someone. For context I became friends with someone who was somewhat of a chemistry genius, doing university level chemistry at 15 years old. We had a fascination with concocting explosives in this dudes kitchenwhich thinking back was fucking silly. Anyhoo, since I wanted to be more like my friend I thought I’d do some experiments by myself to impress him.. Except I was 15 and didn’t have any means to get ingredients for them. Next day at school in chemistry class we ended up doing experiments with Copper Sulfate, I filled up a tissue packet with as much as I could get, wrapped it up and stuffed it into my bag. Next period I decide it would be really sensible to show it off, some kid notices and says “That looks like meth haha”. The kid decides the best idea now is to snatch the bag out of my hand and pour it into his fucking mouth. This kid A) Happily swallowed what he thought was Methamphetamine before lunch time on a school day B) Has actually just swallowed approx 5 grams of Copper Sulfate C) is now about to fucking die. D) All of the above.
So that was the last I seen of him that day, then he wasn’t in the next day, or the next or the rest of the week. The next Monday, a full week later I’m pulled out of class by 2 police officers and a teacher. They explain to me that Methamphetamine Michael has been in hospital getting his stomach pumped for the past week and that they want to know where I had got the meth from. Apparently he had told them I cornered him in a stairwell and poured “meth” into his mouth and held his nose until he swallowed, they didn’t believe that this absolute troglodyte of a child (with a record of possessing and doing drugs in school) would willingly take Meth. I explained that yes I had indeed stole the chemicals from my chemistry class but he had in fact stole them from me under the assumption it was actually drugs, and took it on his own accord. That explanation wasn’t good enough, expelled. I kinda deserved it.
10.
I missed 27 out of 28 days in February due to severe depression from a combination of chronic health issues, family issues, being bullied in school, and not dealing with a sexual assaulted the year before. Everyday I would cry on my way to school. So one day I just stopped going, but I would leave my house so that my parents would think I was in class. Eventually the school contacted my parents, and told them I could repeat my senior year, or drop out, so I dropped out. Once I dropped out I was so much happier, turns out it isn’t normal to have a panic attack everyday. I didn’t realize what a toxic environment my school was until I didn’t have to go anymore. I immediately went got a GED so that I could get a BA, and my life isn’t fucked up in a significant way.
11.
Went to a very preppy protestant all boys school. 9 kids were kicked out of my year. 9 were Jewish.
The principal at the time was let go not long after.
12.
Pulled a knife on a girl who’d been bullying me and beating me up for nearly 2 years, after all attempts at intervention failed. I was in physical jeopardy every single day at school and teachers literally watched me get my head slammed into lockers and did nothing. My clothes were stolen during PE and I had to go to class in my dirty gym uniform. I was shoved down stairs. The vice-principal gave my parents lip service. The parents of the girl who was my worst bully said I was making it up. Cops? This wasthe 80s, the cops didn’t care about school bullies. So I threatened this in front of a large number of students that I would stab her in the throat if she ever touched me again.
I got expelled, then my mother threatened to sue the entire school district and the vice-principal personally. My mother was not a woman to be fucked with, and she managed to get them to reverse the expulsion and only put me in in-school suspension for 10 days.
The school still wouldn’t move my locker or change my classes but that girl didn’t fuck with me again. No one did for the rest of the school year because they thought I was crazy. So at least that worked.
13.
Coffee in middle school.
It all started with this one kid, I’ll call her Becky. Her mom drove her to school every day, and her mom bought her Starbucks. She’d share it with her friends, giving the sips. It was one of those real sugary specialty drinks that masked most of the coffee flavor.
Becky and her friends were pretty popular, and as they went so did the school. It became a hip thing to come to school with a coffee. Didn’t matter if it was Starbucks, Tim’s, Dunkin or even McDonalds, if you had coffee when you walked into school you were cool. It was actually pretty funny seeing kids trying to swig down bitter coffee to fit in.
When it really caught on though, the administration noticed. Concerned about the health problems, and someone potentially getting burned coffee became banned.
The thing was, at this point everyone was addicted. Kids were sluggish, getting caffiene withdrawl headaches and becoming miserable.
I was in a unique position of being the only student on the school web page club with a first period study hall. I would pop my head into homeroom, say “I’m here.” then head to the club room to update the webpage/watch launchcast video on an unblocked computer. The club room was basically a few computers in a room connected to the east wing teachers lounge. Nobody used that lounge though, as the west wing was only like 3 years old and had a brand new lounge with new furniture and a TV.
Anyways, all that is to set the background for the suspension. The old teachers lounge had a coffee vending machine in it. 50 cents for what I now realize was crappy instant coffee. I saw my opportunity. I’d have my friends give me a dollar and their order. I’d sneak into the lounge, get them a cup, and once they got a bathroom pass, they’d swing by and pick up their coffee. We were smart and used cans from the juice vending machine (soda had been banned, but we had a Minute Maid machine).
Like Icarius though, I got too bold. I would go to second period with my can of coffee. The jig was up when my arm got bumped and I spilled hot coffee all over my crotch. I held my tongue from screaming and was wearing camo cargos, so that teacher didn’t know, but 3rd period was gym, and it was penis inspection day, so coach noticed the redness. I failed penis inspection for the 3rd time that year and got suspended for a week.
14.
The school held me back in kindergarden 1 year cause I wasn’t ready for 1st grade yet apparently. When I actually got there they expelled me for already knowing how to read/write, said I was disrupting the others in the class.
15.
Someone at my school got expelled because his mom is antivaxx.
16.
I was told (using different words) that I didnt have enough friends in the classroom and that I should go somewhere else to get them.
17.
Not me but a friend of mine in the 7th grade was expelled for drawing gang signs. She made a poster for a contest the police department held.
My friend couldn’t draw hands well and the bitchy superindent we had believed my friend was part of this ultra secret gang, later the gang symbol she supposedly drew was from an old and obsulcure gang.
School had to later recant her expulsion but a lawsuit was already underway.
We blamed it on the anti-gang warfare the police were going through, which was ironic since our school had legitimate gang members.
18.
My teacher asked me if I did an assignment. I told her I didn’t know. She said that wasn’t a real answer, so I said yes. Turns out I didn’t, so they expelled me.
This (memory problems) along with multiple other disciplinary actions were caused by symptoms of my chronic illness. It took the expulsion, and my parents seeing my symptoms first hand, for everything to click.
I tried going back to the school later, to ensure that what happened to me will never happen again, to make certain that kids would not be punished for their illnesses, but helped and encouraged towards a diagnosis, and accommodations. I pointed out the high rate of suicide at their school directly linked to their lack of response when students are in pain, and pleaded with them to work with me to find a solution, to ensure the safety of all of their children.
They weren’t interested.
19.
Putting 100s of memes w my father photoshopped into them in a school bathroom “vandalism”
20.
Not me but my girlfriend. Her father got cancer and she got a letter from the school that she couldn’t continue there and would be expelled because “as far as they would assess her character , she couldn’t handle” all of that.