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.

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    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.

    • Magister@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      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 :-(

    • GorgeousDumpsterFire@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      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.

    • MirthfulAlembic@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      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.

  • FlavoredButtHair@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    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.

    • ExfilBravo@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      That’s a good lesson actually. We would be better as a society if more people didn’t blindly trust their government and politicians.

  • Stanwich@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    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

    • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      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.

  • just_ducky_in_NH@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    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.