Mine definitely weren’t when I graduated in 2016. Towards the end there, I legit spent most of the day just sitting in the band hall with a handful of 360 controllers playing games (mostly Duck Game) on my laptop with friends and passersby. Virtual classes, concurrent college classes, and a travel hour pretty much gave me free reign to fuck around most of the week because I wasn’t required to be in class except on specific days for those classes. Never got physically bullied, even had a middle-school verbal bully apologize to me. I saw plenty of people come out as LGBT comfortably, I saw football players compliment the marching band, it really wasn’t that bad unless you were one of those people who got into fights, stole shit, and tried to sell drugs.
I have no doubt that schools can be hellholes, but I wouldn’t say it’s a given.
Mine definitely weren’t when I graduated in 2016. Towards the end there, I legit spent most of the day just sitting in the band hall with a handful of 360 controllers playing games (mostly Duck Game) on my laptop with friends and passersby. Virtual classes, concurrent college classes, and a travel hour pretty much gave me free reign to fuck around most of the week because I wasn’t required to be in class except on specific days for those classes. Never got physically bullied, even had a middle-school verbal bully apologize to me. I saw plenty of people come out as LGBT comfortably, I saw football players compliment the marching band, it really wasn’t that bad unless you were one of those people who got into fights, stole shit, and tried to sell drugs.
I have no doubt that schools can be hellholes, but I wouldn’t say it’s a given.