| rev:text
| - "Fuck you all, we hope you die.
That's the Trojan Battle Cry!"
Wow, I can not believe someone Yelp'ed PV.
My freshman year, my science teacher was arrested from embezzling from the strip joint she owned. We then had a different teacher every couple of weeks for the first half of the year. When we finally got a permanent teacher, the damage was done. The kids had no connection or respect for any teacher who walked in the door anymore.
The year I graduated, there were 3000 students and over 1000 in my graduating class. We often had 40+ kids in one classroom.
Man, I hated this school. When I first started on the Bell Rd Campus, we referred to it as PV Prison because of the tall, iron, spiked gates and security in golf carts patrolling the campus for potential escapees. I remember, before they briefly closed the campus for renovations, a girl falling through the auditorium wall, and pieces of the ceiling falling on peoples heads before they condemned it. After 2 years at this location, they suddenly closed the campus and opened the new campus on Union Hills, the campus that was to become North Canyon.
They built the new campus with the intention of having both schools open, but as more and more buildings kept falling apart, they decided to shut down PV and re-open it under the same name on the new campus.
They spent a shit-ton fuck load of money on a super high-tech theater, in return for letting it be used for official Gov't events, that no one new how to use. This was one of the best things about it. I was one of the few people who could run the sound and lights and got out of class frequently because of it.
I remember making a video with Casey about an art show the school was having and not being allowed to air it on the morning video announcements because we used the phrase "come out of the closet" and they thought the phrase might be offensive. Then, that same week, the football team had a video where they all pretended to be gay, talking with lisps and flailing limp wrists. When I went to the office to ask what the fuck, they told me that football players didn't need approval for anything they did. I remember my friend being expelled for missing too much school due to chicken pox and a mother not well enough to call her in. I, of course, seemed invisible to the system. I ditched class often, and it never showed on my record at all. I remember when Miss Lee dressed as a hard rocker with tattoo's for halloween and the administrators making her change it because the costume was a bad influence. I remember my friends boyfriend being suspended because they searched his car for drugs (on an anonymous tip) and found a box cutter in his trunk he used for work which he kept in his trunk because he went to work straight from school. I remember testing out of highschool classes before freshman year, yet being subjected to 4 years of bullshit. I am pretty sure it was PVUSD that was the inspiration for the movie "Pump Up the Volume", which was filmed in the general area.
When I quit the softball team, the coach/school councilor kept sending people to pull me out of class to try to talk me into playing again. When we took pictures for the badminton team, we didn't have enough uniforms for the entire team.
I felt like I was in some prison or some high security mental facility. In fact, when my mom visited the new campus, she was horrified there were no windows and they used the drab, grey/blue colors they use in mental hospitals she had worked in to keep the patients calm. I never had a chemistry class. My two history classes consisted of a teacher who spent one entire year talking about Shakespear, and another who said that "The slaves did not have it so bad". My Biology book was so old, it had my friends mothers name in it from 20 years earlier, AND same friends mother warned me against my Biology teacher, Mr. H__. "If he ever tells you to stay after class by yourself.. DON'T."
The Good Things I Remember -
Mrs. Toal [sp?], a very good, and supportive, English teacher. Miss Lee, the best photography/video teacher ever and always had the best Halloween costumes. Hanging out at lunch under a tree with the boy we called Rico Suave who said he lived in a box and would tell stories about the Horny Lady. Sneaking off campus to go to Barrows Pizza. My friends wearing cut out Trojan condom boxes pinned to their shirt at the forced "spirit assemblies" and chanting our own spirit chant of "Fuck you all we hope you die, that's the Trojan battle cry".
Time has a way of blurring the past, and making it less icky. Yet, my sister is a teacher at North Canyon, and a few years back I went and visited her on campus. The second I stepped into the main building, I felt sick to my stomach. Literally.
I hear they have made improvements since I graduated, and I hope so. I don't want my niece and nephew forced to survive another drone factory.
|