What did your School WASTE MONEY on that Nobody liked? - Reddit Podcast

[@amithegenius]

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[@xz3ss]

How is this comment 11 days old when this video is 14 minutes old? Probably from video due date or what ever it’s called

[@Ch17638]

Went to an agricultural all-boys highschool, in the afternoon we would basically run the farm, milk the cows, plant, feed the chickens, you know all the stuff you learn in an effort to become a farmer (I decided on an IT career later on). So naturally this generated a nice steady stream of income. So for 5 years in a row, we had to watch our headmaster announce that, the budget the Department of Education allocated to the school was being sent back to the government. And all I could think at that moment was that our textbooks were over 20 years old, some held together by tape, glue, and staples and our science classroom hadn't seen a practical experiment ever because there wasn't money to buy chemicals or equipment. Turned out later that the principal got a sizable bonus every year he sent money back, for "managing the school's finances within budget".

[@janets7291]

That is appalling!

[@jacobmcneal3011]

People like that disgust me

[@GiordanDiodato]

isn't that embezzlement?

[@Ch17638]

@@GiordanDiodato if he directly took the money and made out some fake invoices. Our school had the advantage of 300 unpaid laborers (or students as they called it) to pay for everything . The headmaster knew his bonus was in the bag.

[@randomcommenter5372]

He really only cares about money.

[@NeedlessExposition]

It’s almost shocking how much of a drain on school finances that a football team is more than any other school sport. And considering how astronomical the odds are of any of these kids being drafted into the NFL, it makes me shake my head how the school would rather waste money on football than to have outdoor recess, gym classes, or having the proper equipment for teachers.

[@pegasusactua2985]

Thats every public school they all have the "if you dont play sports we don't give a fuck about you" mentality.

[@ChrisF_1982]

Sports shouldn't be paid for with school funds, they should be privately funded.

[@A2theG]

In my last year of high school, my school had painted on braille dots onto all the signs throughout the campus. This would be great for the small handful of blind students there but it was just painted on. No actual bumps on the signs whatsoever.

[@LainzeyL00]

🤦‍♀️

[@tomboyjessie1352]

Ok, ignoring the money wasting, the kindergartners wanting to play outside instead of using iPads puts a smile on my face.

[@ymodnar]

honestly, i thought the kindergarteners were watching that stupid toilet meme thank god they touched grass

[@tomboyjessie1352]

​@@ymodnarMe to ^_^

[@tomboyjessie1352]

​@@ymodnarAbsolutely

[@thebloonbusters6102]

This gen might not be so doomed after all

[@Hatman965]

Bro I was given an iPad but I still watched normal cartoons and played with toys back then man good times

[@trich742]

My elementary school spent thousands of dollars on a gravity swing (basically a safer zip line) but after 4 days they chained it up and claimed kids were too rough on it as some students would give their friends a push to go faster. It sat like that for a decade before the new principal finally allowed kids to play on it again.

[@ryderrepairs]

are you talking about lakewood?

[@trich742]

@@ryderrepairs no, manzanita.

[@michealdrake3421]

Imagine being so incompetent that you put something on a playground and are then surprised when kids are rough with it.

[@heroman2372]

Crazy how schools will get rid of classes altogether and then add useless crap like flatscreens in hallways nobody uses

[@Azzy_2]

Well my school spent $2,000 on buddy benches. They were placed near the field and they weren’t ever used, probably because you had to become buddies with whoever else was sat on it. It became the quickest way to get bullied.

[@thesupervideogamenerdmore3171]

I hate how schools are so unbelievably out of touch sometimes.

[@Avanti998]

My grade school had a huge project where everyone had to bring in as many plastic products as possible (empty laundry detergent, bottle caps, etc.) The idea was that they would melt all the plastic down to turn it into a "buddy bench", where if you sat on the bench, it was a sign you needed a friend. The bench was was your run-of-the mill bench, but didn't seem to have too much success. The funny thing was that the school ended up closing down two years later, and the bench is still standing.

[@MikeL-cb4wc]

You would be surprised at what people can buy on a whim if there are not spending their own money. Plus, I hear some annual budgets in school districts are allocated to each school based on a "use it or lose it" system. If a school has leftover funds after spending on what they need for that year, their budget will reduced by what they did not spend for the next year. So some schools try to spend it all every year, since no one wants to receive less funding every year. Perhaps some of these Reddit cases are a result of this system in effect.

[@CandaceDreamer]

I’m a teacher and have been to many schools with buddy benches. They were all outside for recess and was a bench to either relax on or to sit and wait for a friend. All kids were encouraged to be a good friend and help others make a new friend that way. I hardly ever saw anyone sit on the bench unless it was to relax. Anyone who did to get a friend wasn’t usually there very long and kids would go up to even the kids just chilling. I think having the bench by the office instead of out on the playground was what made that bench useless.

[@shadowsbane877]

My college gave their football coach a 2 million dollar raise... and made severe cuts to the art and music departments.

[@thesupervideogamenerdmore3171]

The US needs to learn that college kids going to the NFL is an ASTRONOMICALLY small chance.

[@randomcommenter5372]

Unfortunately these two programs are always first on the chopping block. At least in America

[@christopherdean1326]

A TWO MILLION DOLLAR RAISE???? How much was on to start with?

[@ChrisF_1982]

As a band kid in high school, I would have been pissed.

[@guus19900]

@@thesupervideogamenerdmore3171 Doesn't matter. As South Park pointed out, college football is basically legalized slavery. They make ridiculous amounts of money off of the back of the students who don't see a cent in return, probably end up with permanent injuries, and, as you pointed out, have abrely a chance of entering the pros.

[@spookybells5099]

New principal painted over all the several decade old murals for absolutely no reason.

[@Dc-10guy]

Same here

[@iwillsewyourlipsshut]

There was a giant beutiful painting of a forest spanning from one side of the wall to the end of it (hall was at least 60 feet) and as soon as we got a new principal... painted over _ALL_ of the walls with this dull beige with stripes of red and blue. Said it was to "cover up vandalism" the only time you would see vandalism was in the bathroom.

[@bonniebunny6857]

As someone who was part of the ROTC class, our ROTC leaders had ro pay for the field trips, our uniforms, etc because our school was more concerned about the sports team. While im talking about my high school, they didn't care about the choir department which I was also apart of. Heck, they forced the color guard to disband because of again, my high school only cared about the sports team. Edit: as someone pointed out, I meant JROTC. Autocorrect did me dirty. "JROTC" is high school level and "ROTC" is college level. Thank you for correcting me!!

[@JeckTheMan]

Damn, as someone in ROTC, I think the school funds a bit on us (uniforms), and we launched a fundraiser so it can fund everything else (field trips and others) Feels bad man.

[@bonniebunny6857]

@@JeckTheMan yeah. Our ROTC Field trips were free because we toured military bases in my state but the uniforms and our military ball the students had to pay for ourselves. I loved ROTC in high school but it sucked that our ROTC, choir, band, and orchestra classes were basically ignored. The reason why the color guard was forced to disband was because a lot of the girls and boys (yes, boys can do color guard) didn't care about winning at competitions because it was a fun experience for them. So because of that, the school said, "we'll still have a color guard. We just won't pay for it and you'll have to pay for everything yourself."

[@kano8]

You'll soon realize, nearly all JROTC in schools are ran the same, even in college.

[@bonniebunny6857]

@@kano8 Yeah. I know. It sucked because my high school is anti military and ROTC was the reason why I even got out of bed and went to school.

[@kano8]

@@bonniebunny6857 I feel ya, it was the only thing I kept doing when I went from public to home school.

[@lunasquid8510]

My school bought a few TVs and hung them around the halls. They showed class schedules as well as current news regarding school events, tests and changed schedules. Was pretty useful and made it so we didn't have to whip out our phones and look it up there, possibly getting distracted with social media whilst doing so

[@dudono1744]

Good use of TVs in school ? That's impossible.

[@stoneslab]

My high school had a fundraiser for money for YEARS to expand the parking lot by a large amount of space, which everyone in the community approved of (the school had so many students that would drive themselves to class every day, and the parking lot was ALWAYS completely full). The school cleared the land, fenced it all off... and decided to spend the money on a building for the wrestling team. The team that already used the MASSIVE gym almost every day of the school year. The team that trashed the building within 6 months, and had to have the inside rebuilt. I graduated and that building was apparently trashed so many times that the school gave up on fixing it, and now the school has a pretty large building that can't even be used, and sits locked on the property. The parking lot still sits unexpanded almost a decade after the construction for said parking lot originally started.

[@iwillsewyourlipsshut]

I think we went to the same school lolz XD

[@starisnotsus]

My school took out all the free parking to build a training area for the football team right across from the stadium they play games in. Every single person who isn’t a freshman hates the training facility and wants the parking back.

[@thesupervideogamenerdmore3171]

This is an example of how football is loved almost like a religion. For what reason, IDFrickingK.

[@ptorq]

About the "prayer garden" one ... Where I went to school, each class had a "faculty advisor." This wasn't a position that followed the class through the grades, it was a different one each year, and the class didn't get to choose, it was just assigned by the school. My junior year the faculty advisor was the art teacher, who almost no one in my class liked (by the end of the year our position had changed dramatically ... we no longer just didn't like her, we actively hated her). The tradition was that the junior class was responsible for putting on the prom, and the juniors and seniors were allowed to go to it. When prom time came we had to pick a theme, and she gave us three choices. I don't remember what any of them were, but I do recall that the vote was nearly unanimous for one of the choices. But she decided we couldn't do that one, so we had to vote again. We were all pretty ticked off ("Why did you have it as an option if you weren't going to let us do it?"), but okay, whatever, we voted again, and again overwhelmingly voted for the one option that didn't completely suck. Well... guess what, we couldn't do that one either. So we were going to have to vote again and choose the best option from a pool of one. About half the class literally just walked out of the room at that point, because we didn't want to legitimize her choice through a sham vote.

[@iwillsewyourlipsshut]

So she really just gave you one choice.

[@PiperMcLean8]

For me it's more of what wasn't spent. We needed new laptops, more materials for any woodshop class. Along with basic things like paper.

[@Grungy1]

In 86/87. We had desks that were over 50 years old and outdated textbooks. But we got the gym floor/ basketball court Refloord. We were not allowed to use it for gym class. They also returfed the football field while none of the girls' bathrooms worked.

[@spectraldragon09]

At least my school uses the TV's in the hallways. Ours always have something useful on like the local News station, the lunch menu, the stock market, ect. I always thought that was pretty common but apparently it's really not.

[@achimsinn6189]

Easy. That Vending machine they got. The school got it as part of a contract for several years. After the first year several kids got sick because the machine used syrup and tab water to mix the beverages it sold and the tab water had some chemical in it that was used to clean the pipes in the building over summer. They had to ask anybody who drank anything from that vending machine to see a doctor to be tested for poisoning. Because of that not only the machine was not only notorious for making pupils sick, but they also had to admit that it was using syrup to mix the drinks instead of offering the actual product. Plus it also sold "fresh water" which actually was just tab water. Several parents were pissed because of that and of course also the poisonous chemicals in the water and asked the school to remove the machine, but the school couldn't because the contract was set up for 5 years. Nobody used the machine after that and every parent and many pupils warned newcomers to stay away from that thing untill it finally got removed. Eidt: TL, DR a beverage vending machine, that turned out to be somewhat of a fraud and poisoned several pupils with contaminated tab water

[@thesupervideogamenerdmore3171]

Schools: "We care about our student's health." *lies and poisons their students*

[@gloomynuggets1598]

tap*

[@lightsidesoul]

Honestly, that sounds like a school issue more than the machine itself. It wasn't the machine that made people sick, it was the tap water, meaning it was closer to the school's fault (or whoever cleaned the pipes) for improperly flushing them after the cleaning. Also, I have never heard of a vending machine that doesn't just drop branded bottles, cans, or snacks.

[@achimsinn6189]

@@lightsidesoul It definitly was mostly the schools fault. They also lied about the drinks being mixed yith syrup and tap water which made issues way worse. And yeah - that one machine was / is really rare. I guess others had similar issues and the ones who sell bottled drinks are just superior and those stupid vending machines disappeared due to that.

[@Mia-dt3gl]

A tossup between building an entire “science building” that hardly had any classes were held in, or giving the teachers laptops to track attendance, directly taking funds out of the budget for required student agenda books. Meanwhile, _four_ drinking fountains were busted and didn’t get fixed for _three years._

[@thesadbread]

TVs, so many TVs. We could have just kept our smart boards but noooooooo. Now we are in debt and we can’t even afford paper

[@zacharypfeil7596]

In the concourse there was a huge renovation to level out the area and add A GIGANTIC SIGIL OF THE SCHOOL MASCOT ON THE FLOOR TAKING UP ONE THIRD OF THE SPACE. IF ANYONE WALKED ON IT IT WAS A WRITE UP OR DETENTION. Poor design choice if you ask me.

[@dakotawhitemane3507]

Use it or Lose it budgets are a big issue. I remember my High school admin panicking because they where coming under budget for a year by a fair amount and scrambled to find things to spend the remaining budget on. Least the school district adjust their budget downwards for the next year. This was the same district that refused to let my High school send it's unused wood shop tools to another high school in the district that had a popular wood shop class and needed replacements that the district wouldn't pay for. Said wood tools hadn't been used, outside rarely by the maintenance staff, for a decade and a half by this point since a year after the school opened.

[@teresabillings8378]

It sounds like these principals had a similar situation as federal government entities. If you don't spend all the money on your budget, the next year you get your budget cut.

[@frankielovejoy9928]

Not sure if this counts, but I remember my vocational school was under construction during my freshman year and much of my sophomore year. They were redoing the cafeteria. That's fine, I guess, but they also installed these TVs and a really loud microphone system that our dean would use to make announcements. He'd do this at least five times per lunch time. Every day. Usually to make announcements about things like prom tickets or whatever fundraiser they had going on. Like, these can be made during morning announcements. You don't need a microphone system in the cafeteria for that. You could have spent the money on something for the shop classes, but noooo. You had to spend it on annoying your students.

[@TiFan86]

When I was in elementary school 25yrs ago they built an out door step keyboard. Like the one in big but made with kid safe safety materials. Apparently it was poorly installed and shorted out the first time it rained.

[@kalebdumez4695]

When I was in high school, my school added another gym to the school, instead of much needed classrooms. They put “portable classrooms” in the staff parking lot to add classrooms.

[@Bruce_P-Z]

In elementary (K-5 at my school) the 5th graders got chromebooks and everyone was happy, then next year they gave the Kindergarteners tablets that were never used instead of giving the 4th graders chromebooks, even crappy ones would have been better than nothing. They then gave half the 4th graders chromebooks to share (they were never allowed to be taken home anyway but still) it was 2 carts of 30 for like 200-ish kids it was a bigger school and they wondered why students didn’t do any of the fundraisers after that Middle school (6-8 mostly, I went to a few different ones) everyone got their own Chromebooks that they can take home but forgot to hand out chargers to some kids, took a week of questioning why students came in without Chromebooks charged for them to realize. Also the standard spending all the money on sports instead of stuff for band or ANYTHING else practically High school: short and sweet on this one, spent all the money on “new” Jerseys for football teams when the band kids needed marching uniforms to PARTICIPATE in a thing later on that year (I dropped out of band by that point, I sucked and wasn’t getting better) and the teacher essentially had threatened with terrible classes after if they didn’t score high on that same event like bruh Needed to rant a bit on this, thanks for listening to my ted talk

[@ukslays]

my school used to have TVs in the hallways near every entrance that just showed "Welcome to [not telling u the name] school. [insert school logo beneath the text]"

[@flowercrown-eevee]

story 14: i think some of the teachers had some of those in my high school. would occasionally use it as it did help project their voice but i think what they did use them for was for the actual deaf girl who was in my grade. she had a mic that the teachers used that connected to her hearing aid. She also had an interrupter however. I feel like one teacher had this in college it did help a bit but it often was too loud for me and my sensitive ears.

[@lomax343]

4:25 - A memorial tree was planted for a girl who was killed right before graduation by her family and friends." Yes, I know you MEAN that the tree was planted by the girl's family and friends, but the way it reads suggest that they killed her.

[@dogofwar6769]

When I went to community school in the mid '00s the 'technology center' was housed in an old building from the 70s that was collapsing due to age and lack of maintenance. Ever worse most of the demonstration machinery (CNC lathes, industrial robots, etc) were all 2nd hand junk most of which didn't work. Some of which ended up being damaged due to constant roof leaks. This was very rural western NC and this school was one of the only places you could get an education for things like computer networking and electrical engineering. And there was actually a need for people which this kind of education thanks to some of the light/medium industry manufacturing in that part of NC. This school was connected to the state school system, but for some reason Raleigh just really hated that school and never wanted to fund it. There's actually a reason for this that'll be revealed at the end of this post. Well the school finally got some federal grants that was supposed to go fix the roof of the technology center and well as some equipment repairs. But at the proverbial last minute the school administrated decided to cancer the contract for the roof repairs in favor of ordering 100 large plasma screen monitors that they installed all over campus. These t hings basically did nothing but play a glorified screen savor with graphics made by the graphics design class. The kind of the cherry top of this sh*t-show sunday is that about 5 years after I ended up just dropping out of school for unrelated reasons the roof the the technology center actually collapsed during a snow storm. Because they never bothered doing those needed repairs. And instead of dealing with this disaster the school simply closed all the degree programs for the people that were based out of that center. It was a small school but about 200 students were just told to find a new collage and transfer there. Over the following years that school continued to dismantled every single tech program in favor of turning this school into just a satellite of the University of North Carolina. It kind of came out that the state department of education really wanted to kill off trade schools in favor of trying to get as many students into much more expensive university programs.

[@Bruce_P-Z]

I think I know the area but not the school exactly, its stupid AF though no matter what

[@urnangei]

my primary school made a wooden climbing frame - everyone loved it! Then, the school started regulating how many people could go on it at a time - and wouldn't let us on it at break. something like 12 people at once in a school of over 600. people stopped using it and, even though i dont go there anymore, in the last year or so i was there it was completely abandoned.

[@ericb3157]

this reminds me of a story in an old website, "absurd notions". a university went crazy with Fences, and built a 6 foot by 6 foot fence surrounding A SINGLE TREE. there was actually a photo on the site, and someone had hung a sign on the fence that said "WHY?"

[@miraveta]

My highschool spent thousands on a series of benches outside where the students could sit...you weren't allowed to sit on or stand near them. They also spent alot on new locks on outside gates. The gates were NOT allowed to be locked at any time.

[@sfsin3380]

If it's random electronics that are never used. It was a grant. You have to spend the whole grant or they take all the money and every grant has a limited list of what the money can be spent on so you buy what you actually wanted then find something else on the list to waste the rest on.

[@asdfssdfghgdfy5940]

Pretty accurate. I know a government department in Australia that had to spend 80k on stationary in June (end of financial year). If they didn’t spend it, their future funds would have been lower than what they needed because they didn’t spend it this time. So they bought it. Then had to dip into next years budget to build a room to keep the damn stationary in.

[@caligrafiabella]

Yeah, I agree with the buddy bench being impractical since my school also had it and nobody used it besides waiting for their friend

[@TheNekoMimiGamer]

The TVs in every hallway featuring slideshows.... I think I went to that school, it was actually a lot more convenient than that because the daily announcements were broadcasted every morning and the slideshow changed when under lockdowns (thankfully we had only 2 externals). It's a little difficult to update a bulletin board on the fly, let alone multiples in every hallway while some armed lunatic is on the run.

[@FroggyToad]

Fixing the playground. The only problem to it is that one ring on something you swing on and a swing that fell, also the fact that there is headphones on the chalkboard, but they didn't fix the headphones. They then "fixed" the playstructure by getting rid of a metal thing on a climbing structure that is more of a choking hazard and unstable then before.

[@Glitteringmoonstone2022]

Smart Boards circa 2002 instead working to get a/c in the school

[@Channelhandle519]

I had a buddy bench at my school but people would play with some mats we had and people would fight each other

[@mbry1]

The principal at my first high school cut nearly 90% of the funding to the sports program. In order to “give more resources to other departments”. Said resources in question was renovating the teachers lounge as well as having vending machines installed in said lounge. As you could imagine those of us who played sports were pissed when we found out.

[@dawnvalentine74]

School is for learning and not football.

[@andrewwagenaar5483]

I also worked at a school were they played that Friday song every Friday.

[@Evamme534]

Mine was rebuilding the school library from a bright, welcoming place with lots of books to entertain students of all ages will multiple genres in comfortable chairs to a bigger library filled with cold metal shelfs, plastic chairs, just the popular books for 13 year olds and fact books. The librarian disliked it, the students disliked it but the teachers liked it because it worked as a better meeting room which they would have two out of 5 days so the library wouldn't be available for most of those days. There was also the canteen. That was so unhealthy and served such grease covered food with no actual healthy/vegan alternatives for meals that even the students who loved fast food were finding it too much. So, whats their response to this? Remove the sandwich section which was the only healthy choice for meals and, while changing the menu, made the food available even more unhealthy! The unhealthy food just sold too well when the only reason was that it was cheap and not the quality of the food.

[@theinsaneone_]

My old school spent a ton of money, I have no idea how much, on getting tiles printed with art of a self portrait of every student so they could put them up on the wall of the main hallway to the office. The school didn’t have much funding and instead of using the funds to repair a main stairwell that was mostly used by the entire school, they wanted us to draw pictures of ourselves to go up on a wall. Later they announced they were buying 3D printers and other things and I just gave up on them. We were a small private school that was only still operating because of the church behind the school funding the school operations

[@RevolutionFalls]

My school literally spent over a student’s entire tuition (over $20,000) on chicken for lunch. It was a private school.

[@giantgeoff]

Branch of the State University built a passive Solar heated building on Campus,,,in the wrong orientation ! Ironically the building was used for the Science Departments. We called it the "Morgue" because it was always so cold. The school always had a strong emphasis on Music Theater, and visual arts. It was not far from Woodstock and sufficient Pharmacuticals were consumed. That the '60's lasted well in to the '90's. Eventually an Engineering program was started, a new building was built, and nobody ever talked about it again.

[@superNova5837]

The Chromebook one I’ve suffered through Try learning after effects on 4gigs of ram and no active cooling paired with a display with F-resolution and somehow always slightly too small for the task at hand I get they need to be cheap but another school straight up bought Windows 10 Pro during covid so people could access adobe from any device and covering the cost of Adobe licenses for basically everyone who needed it

[@averycheesypotato]

Paving over a soccer field for the kindergarteners to play on. Firstly, pissed off the rest of the students. Secondly, the little kids didn’t get as muddy but did scrape up their knees & elbows enough to upset parents. Thirdly, there was already a kindergarten area with more appropriate surfaces & a gazebo area to keep the sun at bay. The former soccer field was on the other side of the school yard, so by the time the littles had been walked over to the new play area, recess was over already. Older kids were not allowed to play in the remaining area while the littles were being escorted too & fro, so that move single-handedly killed recess altogether. At least until a new principal caved & agreed to reschedule everyone’s timetables

[@trq3719]

My School was remodeled in 2019, It has a black button underneath the clock in almost every classroom, It was intended to be able to call the office in the case of an emergency. But it does nothing but play an annoying sound and disconnect the clock from the Internet.

[@DankTheMan]

Story 23: Same here.My school also added buddy benches a year before COVID,but as I have seen,never seen a student that isn’t hurt use it.Teachers use it to sit on while the students play,and the only students I’ve seen is if someone broke there leg or arm or something like that.Nobody other then that uses it because like Story 23,nobody wants to be known as the kid with no friends.Especially because my specific grade is brutal with not following directions and verbal bullying. My Own Story: Near the fence of my school,there use to be a little garden where in the middle there was a statue of Mother Mary (I go to a Catholic school),and around her were flat circular stones that signified the beads of a rosary.The staff liked it because it was place to pray,and the students liked it because that was a place to play.Also because there were a lot of sticks there where they could play fight with them.Well,the school decided they didn’t want the stone rosary anymore,and instead replaced them with these (in my opinion) ugly looking flowers that surrounded the statue.As far as I know,the students and staff don’t like it because it’s an eyesore to look at compared to the old rosary.Don’t know how expensive it was,but depending on the price to flowers were,how much it cost to take out the stones,and the money they had to pay to the parents that went to do it.I’d say roughly around 6-7,000 dollars they spent to make an eyesore of a change.

[@karladt9377]

When i was in year 2, we had a buddy bench. Kids did sit on it, but no one went to play with them so the teachers made one person from each year 2 class (so 3 kids) wear a bright green jacket so people would know theyre meant to be helping the lonely kids

[@TheFutureJedi]

My school just got a new basketball court. None of the boys bathrooms have actual locks.

[@argonaut640]

Oh boy, the Spirit Rock. That thing was installed in my college, right in front of the student center during my Junior Year of college. Of course, it was announced the same year they announced cuts to the music program, which I was in. It was meant to be painted to represent the school or whatever students wanted to advertise/push. Long story short, it did not, in fact, increase school spirit or promote unity. If anything, all it did was create a sense of division on campus. People started painting things with clearly charged messages on it and it had to be reset to default red a few times while I was there, it got so out-of-hand. Didn’t even look that good to begin with, either. Funny thing is, they already had a commemorative rock on the campus…next to the music building. The irony has yet to leave me on that one. When I returned to watch a performance after graduation, I found that infernal stone replaced with a nice fire pit with benches around it. Something that frankly appeared to promote student unity more than the spirit rock ever did. The catharsis I felt from that sight was indescribable. Good riddance, Spirit Rock.

[@DinoRicky]

Love at 13:58 when he mentioned the cafeteria, the game character goes to the cafeteria in game cool

[@deformedbread1826]

at my old school there was this thing called school council (or student council) where some selected students would be in a council and make decisions for some things (food choices at lunch, playground equipment, etc.) and they would have a budget. during covid my old school spent like half the budget on arrows and laminated signs telling you which side of the walkway you were supposed to be on, because of social distancing. it didnt work and no-one even followed the signs.

[@JV-pu8kx]

Years after I graduated, as the Internet was moving in (late nineties), the school forced the faculty to use an over-priced, junk grade book software that many of the teachers hated. There was already two or three different packages floating around the school that actually did what was needed by the teachers. I had been brought on for some other technical work and sat in on the training session they had. Yes, the admin did only _one_ training session. (The faculty was split into two groups, but only one session, each.) It was _immediately_ apparent that I would be spending the entire school year doing a far better job of explaining the software than the admin ever could. I had to have multiple one-to-one sessions with nearly _every_ teacher, in part to figure out workarounds to get their unique grading rules to work. The software was so bad that even with my current programming skills, I could have come up with something far better and for cheaper.

[@thehund]

My high school got a statue that looks almost like the principal at the time…

[@princessmarlena1359]

Chocolate microscopes. They used that really bitter chocolate that’s like eating tree bark. And it was unnecessary.

[@robertsissco2439]

North Dakota State University build sunk in amphitheater seating just outside the student union, part of the drive to spend money when they went to Division 1. I laughed my ass off whn I saw it, it was a giant concrete bowl in the ground...with no draining. North Dakota gets snow and rain, and that was going to flood bad. And it did. I have a friend who used to work in that building, and every spring the carpets and wall were just dripping with water because it was so close to the building and held so much water. The next year they ripped it out. My tuition went up so a failed civics engineering student could build their little project only to be torn out the next year.

[@Spaceplayzsfs]

15:35 Where I live,laminated ID cards are normal in school and I thought it was normal everywhere,you learn something new every day,also where Im from the ID cards usually aren't used for opening doors or scanning,just to identify you and your parents phone numbers.

[@ionic2706]

4:25 "... girl who was killed right before graduation by her family and friends" Stephen King: 🔥🔥✍✍✍🔥🔥

[@cassiuscartland]

This was about 6 years ago. our school spent over £2000 per unit on about 50 iMac Pros. This was a primary (elementary for the americans) school in the uk, and none of the teachers knew how to use them. They ended up just sitting on the default screen saver most of the time.

[@orion6369]

They got rid of the totem pole in the cafeteria instead of improving the food

[@hatcher365]

for me, it was new water fountains, after being promised new computers.

[@ChuckSannel]

My highschool does spend a lot of it's budget, but we have the nicest school in my area, and I am happy about it, we have a really good PLTW program, an anchor system on the doors (for the school shooting ~4 years ago) that can be deployed rapidly. No money wasted, no expense spared, the perfect place. Well... I mean the vending machines that work only carry energy drinks, coffee, and some wierd mountain dew zero stuff chock full of artificial sweeteners INCLUDING aspartame. Besides that 5 stars... 4 stars because that's how they rate these things I guess... Also we have the best athletic training programs in the state.

[@aperocknroll88]

In elementary school, one year they got all new computers for the computer lab... They were those iMacs that had the different color shells... and were considered all-in-ones because the monitor and the actual computer was just one big piece... It seemed like they were always down. My class maybe got to use them once per year.

[@PokeMaster22222]

I don't know about the "nobody liked" part because it was after I graduated, but my boys-only high school demolished and redesigned one section of the school in the late 2010s - before the rebuilding, there was a lot of open space (that boys liked to use for handball), but also a covered section underneath the classroom levels, along with a smaller canteen (that, in my early years, was for the Year 7-8 students that were based in this section). After the rebuilding, the smaller canteen's gone and everything's indoors now. It might _look_ nicer, but I never got the appeal of it.

[@CristobalWatsonHernandez]

I found the stories about laptops interesting, I bought a basic laptop for $299 five years ago, it works better than the new chromebooks my nieces got from school. To be fair, the first thing I did with my laptop was get rid of windows, the girls aren't allowed to get rid of chromeOS...

[@oszievavoxrv3154]

Story #3 is a great example of abusive school programs

[@funman2547]

A social worker who does the opposite of what she's supposed to

[@swapmarioyt64]

In my 3rd year of high school, the principal decided to install in virtual clocks that showed the hour, minute, and second You may ask how this was a waste, well three things, one, students spread rumors that there were cameras that were still spread after they said they didn't. Two, we had computers that pretty much did the same thing and normal clocks. And three, they had speakers they decided to used (instead of the normal speakers) that sound worse than a broken ps1, and we had speakers that worked pretty well. They pretty much wasted money on clocks they already had, and they still left the old ones in those rooms, so they gave us two clocks.

[@pumkin610]

Scoreboards are like the easiest cheapest thing

[@JustANoob1]

4:45 my elementary school had this in all rooms but only the music teacher and drama teacher would use it because the music teacher couldn't project her voice over recorders and the drama teacher used it as a voice changer in puppet shows. all other rooms had it but didn't use it because they could yell loud enough to get our attention and kindergartners would be pretty distracted from the teachers voice coming from the ceiling. kids would steal the microphone from time to time and pretend to be the announcements, scream mild profanity, etc. the school removed them and replaced them with 4k HDR Plasma screens to display the 144p interlaced morning announcements done by the 4th graders.

[@GERMANCHEESERAT]

i have a clock in the main hallway in my school. its always stuck on 12 00 no am no pm just 12 it never changed at all. and we have a tv right beside the cafeteria which they almost never used it would just be stuck on a blank slide. and when it was used they made it show slideshows or posters that change every 30 seconds. i think i'm the only one at my school confused on why we have those which i'm surprised

[@OscarOSullivan]

My secondary school during the Covid 19 emergency removed the lockers for senior cycle until my last year at the school. The metalwork and engineering teachers made good use of their 3D printer, the computers and IT classes were great, Home Economics and the other practical subjects were great we had wonderful PE classes with options such as basketball, baseball, rounders, Gym if you were senior cycle, Athletics, Pool. We had tv’s with information on them regarding holiday’s, locker clean outs other wise the caretakers wouldn’t be pleased.

[@StripperOfHorniness]

What are senior cycle’s?

[@epicsshadesmaster-animatio4398]

The light up sign outside , all of the school and teachers believe funding could be used more effectivly

[@magnusm4]

I really hate morons like this who don't deserve to make decisions when EVERYONE involved knows and says it's stupid. Had that recently in our apartment building. We had a gym, running machine, bench press, weights and mattresses the works. Even had a shower recently reimplemented since the old got broke. Then suddenly during spring cleaning, they said some jackass had gone into the water pipe room "you have to go through it to the gym" and changed the values or pushed buttons. It wasn't serious but they decided to completely lock the room and throw away equipment worth thousands. Even one big machine, the one you train to give a big bear hug. Saying it was broken. My dad called bull cause he'd used it just a few days ago. And they had no idea what to replace it with. My dad had even just the week prior replaced the batteries on the weight scale. So super expensive machines nobody could ever have in their apartment only found at gyms, newly installed shower, fixed weight scale, music player and weights ALL gone with no foresight or idea for what to do instead. Me and my dad simply went dumpster diving into the container loaned for the cleaning and we swiped the weights, the scale and some other stuff from the gym. I even found an amazing rolling office chair with fluffy seat, head rest, arm support and it was stable as a mountain. It puts all gaming chairs to shame. Made a huge jackpot replacing the old dirty chair. My parents and are often complimenting it and being dumbfounded how anyone could throw away such a perfect mint condition and super expensive chair.

[@bensoncheung2801]

I guess the owner of that gym wanted a more “ghetto” vibe? [And going into that concept, they can’t be looking *too* fancy if that’s the case, and in place of that equipment, maybe the tenants can get their _grind-set going_ working with whatever’s left (maybe get some more of that yoga and Tai chi action going) and train up their muscles through sheer *grit,* as opposed to the convince of that fancy equipment and creature comforts.] Maybe this makes the gym look like a gym the apartment owner saw in a movie one time, and that they were looking to do this for a while and was basically looking for any opportunity to do it, and the time finally came? Or maybe the apartment owner just felt that the tenants weren’t of good enough pedigree to have access to such pleasantries, and this is their way of showing them their place? Stray thought that came to me right before posting, but it’d be pretty evil of them if that’s the case. . . But I kinda feel like they would’ve done every effort to destroy they equipment before tossing it out if that was the case, and by the way you found it, well… maybe that’s not the case. Then there’s gotta be a very strange reason/a story on why the building owner thought that this was a good idea; might I go so far to suggest that they were initially an extravagant person (due to having owned such a fancy gym to begin with) who was going through some kind of mental breakdown? If it’s not this, then the actual story’s probably *even more weird.* Mindless word vomit, but still, will there be updates to this story?

[@chocolate-eclair1234]

I want that chair

[@tonyanderson-ln9gl]

"First, G_d made an idiot. That was for practice. Then He made a school board." Mark Twain.

[@geekchic8798]

Went to a grammar school in the UK. I don't know if the school received or saved up some money during my time there, but the only times they spent money on was that they refurbished only the girls toilets and not included the boys toilets in that project, replaced the flooring in the students social areas from carpeting to anti-slip flooring due to the bad weather we get and the leaking ceiling that they didn't fixed and they bought new desks, but they were only used during pre-exams and exams season, while the desks in the classrooms were either chipped, cracked, wobbly, top of the desk was hanging off or completely off the metal frame or all above. Over the time I went there, floor tiles were either worn down, crack or was missing and the ceiling tiles were either water stained, broken/chipped, half of it was missing or the entire tile was missing. They started building the new school the summer that I left and opened it the summer after my eldest nephew left 2 years later.

[@Slushiebop]

I can agree, CROMEBOOKS ARE HELL

[@Riley-ub2tf]

9:13 I had a buddy bench at me elementary school. No one used it for buddies but just as a normal bench. I mainly used it because it was the only bench in the shade so I could read

[@mr.spoopy3027]

same, i didnt even sit at it, just used it to hop the fence after school ended

[@StormMC]

My school Spent 9 grand on a Table, yes a TABLE! (To be fair the table was quite nice)

[@picklegod2576]

My school wasted their money on signs even though they already had signs and could’ve added better lunches and much more but decided against that and wasted their money on the signs

[@Chalky.]

In the 80s my school bought some BBC micro computers, but none of the teachers were trained to use them, and while kids like me were knowledgeable in their use, only the teachers were allowed to demonstrate and supervise their use, so they just sat there barely touched for years.

[@TheL1meSt1ck-46]

Around 3 months ago, my class was notoriously known for being the troublemakers' class. This is when we were introduced to a box to put our cellphones in and lock them for the rest of the classes (only allowed to get them during recess). I kindly call it "Smartphones' Prison of Alcatraz". And now, my school and all other schools in the country are slowly but surely putting this cellphone box in every single classroom.

[@d4n737]

Headmiss of our school was notorious, at least in my eyes, for being purely image obsessed. She was good at making long, metaphorical speeches that amounted to nothing in reality... The issue was, all funding went to schools PR because she was clearly more interested in making celebrations and events than actually running the school. The computers were old, of course, the technology was outdated and toilets had periodic issues. It's a smaller elementary school, so it's just a funding thing, right? Wrong. At 75 years anniversary, the headmistress made a GIANT celebration that took place in the local house of culture, basically the town's centre for theatre, art and culture activities. There were notable guests, like local politicians who happened to be former students, they rented out the theatrical stage for students to make a half-assed performance, bells, whistles, and to top it off, she dumped a giant hunk of granite into the school playground with a brass plaque commemorating the occasion... and kids of course couldn't climb on it because of course they couldn't... I wonder how much cash that cost.

[@jvpkvp3680]

4:30 she was killed by her family and friends?!

[@CalmQueenKey]

I thought the buddy bench was just my school. So stupid 🙄

[@Connor-zl8gi]

Some of these stories are like why even bother spending money on something that no one's gonna like.

[@BenDoherty-ir2rt]

My school bought us a merry go round with money we raised specifically to get one, then they WELDED IT TO THE GROUND so that it is "just as fun with none if the danger". Ironically, 3 people have gotten injured by hitting their shins against it, while the last school (which had a working merry go round) reported no injuries. What the #$@%, school.

[@nobodyatall9999]

8:32 Every school ever:

[@scottthomas3792]

Prioritizing sports over education isn't new. In 1977, the high school I went to paid a fortune to have some outdoor bleachers painted school colors. The bleachers were aluminum, and aluminum doesn't take paint well unless prepared properly and these weren't. The paint was peeling within a few months. At the same time, the textbooks listed the USA as having 48 states, and one science textbook predicted humans wouldn't go into space until the year 2000....

[@DoubleHCreations]

In my middle school in about $2000 to spend. They could’ve installed an air conditioning system, but no they decided to repaint the tiles on the floor of the CAFETERIA

[@TurtleSauceGaming]

Treadmill desk. Was thought to solve adhd by giving them an outlet for their extra energy by walking and working. First time I was around one being used the individual walking on it was stomping and rawring like a dinosaur. They invested in 2 as a testing stage, and it never went any further. 3k total. But when you charge 40k a year per student, you can do that. Hell, it's that willingness to try crazy shit that makes them one of the better schools for Developmental disabilities in a state with one of the best track records for DD. Some things just don't hit.

[@H3xx99]

If I was a multi-billionaire, I'd go to every school in my home state and give them a Conditional No Pay loan instead of a donation. Meaning that of they stayed within the conditions, they would never have to repay the loan. For a period of years, they would be banned from increasing the athletics departments budgets, not using the loan money or redirecting money from other budgets into Athletics. At least 25% of the money would go to payroll and it would have to be spread evenly.

[@pla1nswalk3r]

I don't know how expensive they were, but my school put smart boards into some classrooms. None of the teachers even tried to figure out how they worked, so they just became fancy surfaces for our ancient OHPs to project onto.

[@thesupervideogamenerdmore3171]

I know it was the idea of the school, but I love how a lot of teachers act like they have the technology knowledge of the 1990s.

[@codyprine9200]

Once our school started with the badges we joked they were mostly to help ID the bodies afterwards.