The teachers said they couldn’t control themselves around the girls.

The Darkest Days

Friday morning, I was scrolling through my phone before first period when I saw the posts. Someone had created a fake account with a generic username and started posting photos of girls from our school.

The photos were normal school pictures, but the captions were disgusting comments about their bodies, sexual remarks, and ratings of their appearance. Multiple girls got targeted, including Alyssa, Deedee, and girls from the volleyball team.

The posts were spreading fast, with people sharing them and adding their own gross comments. Girls were running to the bathroom crying.

Teachers were trying to get the posts reported, but new ones kept appearing faster than anyone could flag them. The account had been created sometime overnight and already had dozens of posts.

By second period, campus security was involved, and the administration was trying to trace the account’s origin. By third period, campus security had tracked the IP address to somewhere off-campus—definitely not a student device.

The tech guy explained it to the principal in her office, and word spread fast because someone’s older sister worked in the main office. An adult had created that account, spent hours collecting photos of underage girls, and posted those disgusting comments.

The whole thing shifted from stupid online drama to something way more serious and honestly scary. Campus security contacted the police, who started their own investigation into who owned that IP address and whether this counted as harassment or something worse.

The rest of Friday felt weird, with teachers looking nervous and students checking their phones constantly to see if new posts appeared. Alyssa looked exhausted, probably from crying in the bathroom between classes after seeing her photo with those comments underneath.

Lucille found me after school in the parking lot. She asked if Alyssa would be willing to record a video statement about what it felt like to have teachers comment on her body, speaking directly to the camera for the next article.

I told her I’d ask but couldn’t promise anything because Alyssa had been through enough already. That weekend, Alyssa texted the group chat saying she wanted to do it.

She said people needed to hear directly from someone this happened to, not just read about it secondhand. We met at Lucille’s house Sunday afternoon because she had decent camera equipment from her journalism class.

Watching Alyssa film that statement was brutal. She sat in front of the camera, took a deep breath, and started talking about walking into class every day wondering if today would be the day Mr. Cortonhorst stared too long or made another comment.

She described the sick feeling in her stomach when he called her outfit inappropriate while looking directly at her body. She talked about how the dress code made her feel like her body was the problem instead of grown men who couldn’t control themselves.

Her voice cracked twice, but she kept going, and by the end, Lucille and I were both trying not to cry while she stayed completely steady. Her courage was absolutely stunning, and I felt proud to know her.

The video ran in Monday’s school paper, both online and in print copies distributed around campus. Lucille’s article included the video statement alongside updates about the fake social media account investigation and the police involvement.

The combination of Alyssa speaking directly about her experience and concrete evidence that an adult was targeting students shifted everything. Parents started calling the school demanding answers.

The district office got involved; local news picked up the story. By lunch Monday, our protest wasn’t just about dress codes anymore, but about the whole culture of teachers objectifying students and administrators protecting them instead of us.

Retaliation and Paper Trails

Tuesday morning, I found a flyer stuck to my car windshield. It claimed students at our school were part of a radical agenda trying to sexualize children and destroy good teachers’ careers.

The flyer had no source listed and no organization name—just printed accusations and a grainy photo of the protest. The same flyers showed up in mailboxes all around the school neighborhood.

My mom told me when I got home; she seemed more angry than worried, which was comforting. Other parents in the supportive group chat were posting photos of the flyers they’d received, trying to figure out who sent them.

Michaela Houston organized a response within hours. She got the parent coalition together and printed factual information sheets about what actually happened, including quotes from the original dress code policy, a timeline of events, and an explanation of what we were actually asking for.

Wednesday after school, I saw groups of parents walking the same neighborhoods that got the anonymous flyers, knocking on doors and handing out the real information. Michaela had turned this into an actual ground campaign, and watching parents fight for us felt incredible.

The parent opposition thought they could spread lies anonymously, but our parents were willing to show their faces and have actual conversations with neighbors about what was really happening. Thursday morning in the hallway between second and third period, Mr. Cortonhorst walked past me deliberately.

He was talking to another teacher, but his voice got louder right as he passed. The other teacher nodded along while Mr. Cortonhorst said something about students who should focus more on academics instead of causing drama and how some people clearly had too much free time.

He didn’t look at me directly, but the message was obvious: my grades were going to suffer because I’d stood up against him. The threat hung in the air even though he never said it explicitly.

Mr. Silas Wolf must have been close enough to hear the exchange because he caught up with me before I reached my next class. He pulled me aside into an empty classroom and explained how to document grade changes through the student portal.

He suggested checking my grades weekly and taking screenshots of everything to establish what my grades looked like before any possible payback. He showed me exactly where to find participation grades and how to export the data.

He never said directly that he thought Mr. Cortonhorst would retaliate, but the careful way he explained everything made it clear he understood what was happening. That night, I logged into the student portal and started pulling grade data for myself, Tyrone, TJ, and the other main protesters.

What I found made my stomach hurt. Several of us had seen our participation grades drop in certain teachers’ classes over the past two weeks.

My grade in Mr. Cortonhorst’s class had gone from a 94 to an 87. Tyrone dropped from a 91 to an 84 in the same class, and TJ’s participation grade in Coach’s class fell from 95 to 88.

The pattern was too similar to be random or fair. These were teachers we directly challenged, and our grades were falling in their classes specifically while staying steady everywhere else.

I screenshotted everything and sent it to the group chat. Friday morning, I forwarded all the grade data to Margarite Parsons.

She responded within an hour, asking to meet and explaining that payback against students who file complaints was itself a Title 9 problem. The investigation was growing beyond just the dress code issue to include how staff treated students who spoke up.

She wanted documentation of every grade change, every comment, and every interaction that felt like punishment for protesting. The whole thing was getting bigger than any of us expected.

The Tides Turn

Wednesday morning during third period, the principal’s voice came over the intercom asking for everyone’s attention. She announced that Mr. Cortonhorst had been placed on paid leave while the district completed their investigation.

You could hear the collective gasp across campus even through closed classroom doors. Some students started whispering immediately while others sat in shocked silence.

The teacher whose class I was in looked uncomfortable and tried to redirect everyone back to the lesson, but nobody could focus. After that announcement, the classroom erupted the second the intercom clicked off.

Some kids started cheering and high-fiving like we’d just won the championship. Others looked worried, whispering about AP history exams coming up and who would teach the class now.

I sat there feeling this weird mix of relief and guilt churning in my stomach. Part of me was glad he was gone, that Alyssa wouldn’t have to deal with his comments anymore.

But another part kept thinking maybe I’d ruined someone’s career, even though I knew he did this to himself by being creepy. The teacher tried getting everyone back on task, but it was useless.

Everyone had their phones out texting or scrolling through group chats about what just happened. I stared at my desk feeling like I should be celebrating but mostly just feeling tired.

After school, I found my car in the parking lot and was about to leave when Alyssa knocked on my window. She climbed into the passenger seat without asking and we just sat there for a minute watching other students walk past.

She broke the silence first, saying it felt weird to win something but not feel happy about it. I nodded because I knew exactly what she meant.

The whole point was making things safer for girls, but getting there had been exhausting and messy and uncomfortable. She said she was glad he was gone but wished none of this had been necessary in the first place.

We talked for maybe twenty minutes about how strange it felt to force adults to do the right thing. Eventually, she mentioned her mom wanted to help us prepare for tomorrow night’s board meeting and asked if I could come over.

I agreed, even though the thought of speaking in front of the whole board made my hands sweat. At Alyssa’s house that evening, her mom sat us down at the kitchen table with printed copies of the meeting agenda.

She coached us on staying factual, speaking clearly, and not getting defensive when board members asked challenging questions. She made us practice our statements three times each, stopping us whenever we got too emotional or started rambling.

She explained the board members would be looking for specific examples and documentation, not just feelings. She showed us how to pause if we got choked up, how to make eye contact with different board members, and how to end our statements with clear requests for action.

By the time we finished practicing, it was almost 9:00 and my throat hurt from talking. Alyssa’s mom made us promise to get good sleep and eat breakfast before the meeting.

I drove home feeling slightly more prepared but still completely nervous. That night, I lay in bed rehearsing my statement over and over in my head.

Every time I closed my eyes, I imagined standing at the podium with everyone staring at me. I kept changing words and rearranging sentences, trying to make it perfect.

Around 2:00 in the morning, my phone buzzed with a text from Tyrone saying he couldn’t sleep either. Suddenly, the whole group chat lit up with everyone admitting they were awake and freaking out.

TJ sent a terrible joke about yoga pants that made no sense, but we all laughed anyway. Someone started sharing memes about school boards.

We stayed up until almost 4:00, trading nervous energy and stupid comments that helped calm everyone down. When I finally fell asleep, my alarm went off what felt like ten minutes later.