I really love this. No, seriously.

Note: This deals specifically with my high school.

I love when teens are in an important part of their lives, when they're right on the precipice of jumping into the abyss of individuality and The Future, and all they want is a little guidance from good people and good hearts and then those good people and good hearts send naked pictures of themselves to other good people and good hearts and then a sex scandal erupts and then confusion ensues. And then no directed, open discussion follows because other good people and good hearts hope that the scandal just feathers away. And then confusion runs rampant. And it quietly plagues the rest of the year. And a small fraction of each life that was affected. I freaking love that.

As a former part of Mason High School's Student Government, I can tell you of only one thing that I've learned for certain from that ruthless, but totally happenin', organization: it's hard enough to get the ninth graders and twelfth graders abuzz about something important, let alone the entire community. Try hard as we could, we just couldn't seem to get the coverage we needed about holiday gift donations to terminally ill children, or spring pep rallies (okay, I'll admit they were a bit crap, though we're in the process of revamping, so back off), or even about delicious chocolate candybars. . .and here we thought chocolate was tastier than sex scandals! Bottom line is, we know that getting the student body and the Mason community excited about one universal something is actually ridiculous and inconceivable. The southwestern Ohio suburbs are just far more jaded than we ever thought, I guess. All those upper middle class cul-de-sac barbecues must really wear down our spirits. . .oh woe are we! No more fresh squeezed lemonade, we have to turn to lemonade powder!!!

Yet I digress. . .However, to have one issue dominate all cloths of conversation, from Hollister to Chico's to Sears, is to have something revolutionary seep across the community map.

It's obvious that something has gone awry with student-teacher relationships at Mason High School. Pre-bond, gym teacher Stacy Schuler faced up to 81 years in prison for inappropriate relations with students, and former assistant principal George Coates has resigned because he sent sexual pictures to aforementioned Schuler. Yet despite all efforts by the administration to keep the issue hush hush within the school, it is quite literally not even close to being a secret. Witty Facebook statuses concerning the scandal pop up on "Top News" because they've received so many likes, all caps text messages starting with OMG and ending with HOLY SHIT have been forwarded around the 2010 graduating class, and the scandal has rocked the number of teenage readers of Cincinnati.com to never-before-seen numbers. That is, teenagers now know what Cincinnati.com is.

Yet even with all this outside transparency, life at MHS is still honey and daisies. No coverage from the student newspaper, no school-wide discussions, nothing more than an email home and a "we'll be here for you if you need to talk."

And I understand the whole "keeping it on the DL" idea--it protects the integrity of former administration and also protects against distraction from schoolwork

Yet, once viewed at from an "institution of learning" perspective, it seems that this dearth of guided dialogue should absolutely not be happening. Come on administration, get it together! A mere year or two ago, this assistant principal who resigned because of his own nudey pics chastised us for being the propagators of our own nudey pics! I mean, talk about irony, amirite??! It's like, first of all, this is the stuff that our English teachers taught us to analyze! Differential treatment based on age and status, the sprawling effects of one situation, it's just literary analysis. Except it's real. I mean, here we are, living a situation that needs more analysis than Catcher in the Rye, and we're being completely oblivious to it! Boo on you MHS administration, boo on you for being phonies.

I mean, not only are all the students in this weird upside-down daze of gossiping about the very people that they are supposed to place trust in, but also, just think about the deleterious effects this sex scandal is going to have on student-teacher relationships. It's going to crap on them! No doubt administration is going to crack down on teacher bonding time. Teachers will be on high alert: fewer after school one-on-one study sessions, fewer lunches with teachers, fewer personal emails. Fewer everything! Which is terribly scary. I mean, come on, there has to be a certain number of walls smashed in order for students and teachers to form a special mentorship bond that will ultimately help students out in their future lives. But with recent events and our non-discussion based administration, those walls have little chance of remaining quite so fluid. Hello concrete walls, goodbye teacher lunches.

With our levy failing, our still expanding student population and now this sex scandal blasting our public school world, will MHS be able to rock their title as a blue ribbon school? I'm thinking that without some open, deliberate discussion on the issue, no. People (and not just parents, student too) need to believe in the school again, to believe that teachers are indeed good role models. To believe that our tax money is paying the salaries of people who care about student performance and betterment. To believe that student-teacher relationships are not dangerous, but in fact crucial to a better future. And transparency, dialogue, vent-seshes, are the only ways to start getting there. And it'll be difficult--we all know that ignorance and anger and heated emotion (aside: is prevalent in our school district, cough. . .Jennifer Miller?) can lead discussion the wrong way, but it's still absolutely necessary you guys! It may be difficult, but it may also be the only way to keep Mason top dawg in public school education.

I give so much credit to Mason High School to bringing me where I am today. I have deep appreciation for all the good people at the school, for the number of close relationships I had with teachers, and for the generous role models I believe in. I trust that Mason can rumble past this, can dig through the ambiguity of scandal and re-emerge with unity unknown.

Good people and good hearts, don't leave the plague of infamy to the text message gossip mill, take charge, let your students trust in you again.