Around Columbine, rumours started going around at my school that one of my friends was going to shoot up the coming assembly. He wore a trench coat but was just another dnd nerd and bullying wasn't even bad at my school (this itself was probably about as bad as bullying would get). He was monitored during the assembly and a lot of people avoided it, but it was one of the few I went to. Obviously nothing happened during it.

Though my favourite assembly story from that school was about the time they absolutely wanted everyone to attend one. Many people would usually just leave the school during them, so on this day, they posted teachers at each door to keep people from leaving while others moved through the school and herded everyone to the gym.

I remember getting to the gym, thinking they had beat us, only to enter and see that the line of people going in didn't disperse to the seats in the bleachers. Instead it continued on to the one door they forgot to guard: an exit from the gym itself.

I wish I could have seen the look on their faces when they got in to the gym only to find it probably less full than usual, since everyone exiting from right there probably made some who wouldn't have normally left grow bold enough to do it. But I didn't see their faces because I also left.

Then they just kinda gave up. Even though it would gave been relatively easy to fix the flaw in their plan, they never did try to block us in like that again.

Basically, how they were treating students. The school was operating under a lot of obvious nepotism, and was pretty openly bigoted. I was one of their primary targets. It ended with the state investigating, and then lawyers, and the school agreeing to pay my tuition to go elsewhere.about 1/4 of the staff turned over by the next year. Three years later the whole hierarchy was changed, and much of the rules, and policies, were changed.

At this point, 2 years later, the new superintendent called my dad and apologized for how I was treated. He then asked if it was possible to make amends, and for me to return to the school. He turned that down. To this day (30 years later) kids still hear about the "out of control" period in the 90s that lead to the school being completely reformed. If people are interested I can elaborate on things that went on. For one, their most academically gifted student, by a long shot, was basically shunned because he is gay. The dude is probably a legit genius, and is a prodigal musician. He had the highest marks, and assessment scores, but that didn't matter, he was a dirty queer. The school was a place you could call Kafkaesque without there being a bit of exaggeration.