St John the Baptist R C School

I went here, I was sad it closed, but upon mental review… naww I’m not.
Positives:
— Continuous and long running class interruptions. Everything from mass, plays, confession, catholic schools week, fundraisers, act 80 days, and gigantic grand productions including speeches when a class behaved poorly.
— Oregon trail in computer class.
— Had a decent mix of eclectic and obnoxious people from all over NEPA.
— Some of the teachers really tried and did not grind in how little money they made and kept their lives separated from the school.
— Fun run-​ins at the mall with your teacher as she waited on you in a department store.
— The use of laser discs.
— The creepy pictures of classes from 1920 +.
— Readily available Fruit Roll-​Ups.
— Lots of odd places to explore like the old rectory and scary basement rooms which for some reason at least 4 times a year we were left unattended to head there.
— Always warm in the winter.
— Tornado drills.
— Having your birthday announced over the intercom during morning announcements.
— Clapping erasers on the dangerous fire escapes.
— Wyoming Area bus service which meant those living across the bridge got to leave literally an hour and a half after getting to school on a half day.
Neutral
— Location was walkable to several weird after school hangouts.
— A decent amount of extracurricular activities considering the school had tops 250 people at any given time. (They sucked though.)
— Our own gym, cafeteria, and playground area. While other parochial schools had only some or none of these. (Neutral because those kids never complained.)
— Uniforms. Poor colors but quicker mornings.
— Wearing golf shirts for gym class?
Negative
— Environment that fostered favoritism, singling out of students (for years based on anything from parents professions, location of home, economic upbringing, and personal vendettas), passing of students who did not have the aptitude to continue, and small groups of parents having full control over decisions for the whole class.
— Teachers who were overtly involved with the social lives of students. Example: telling students who they should hang out with, hall meetings to discuss clique arguments that lasted hours, direct insults to the character of children aged 6 – 14.
— The bitchiest kindergarten teacher who made a different child cry every day on any topic ranging from getting a prayer wrong to taking to long getting their coat.
— Teachers who would always ask my father for help getting jobs at a local public school.
— A priest who was an ex military policeman who would order us to chew on command in silence during lunch at times and force students to finish milk after they were full. Same priest sauntered into the girls lav on multiple occasions to yell at them to stop looking in the mirror.
— Teacher cliques that behaved as badly, if not worse than the children in the school when it came to socially interacting with each other.
— A PTA organization where the focus was solely fund raising and not the improvement of the school or parent/​teacher relations.
— Several students who were obviously mentally disturbed in one form or another yet remained in the school without assistance or regard to whether they where a distraction or disturbance to others as they were tuition payers.
— Teachers who were obviously mentally disturbed.
— Obscure contracts with outside companies that required students to spend money on specific items — Flynn and O’hara uniforms and the «student organization system» (SOS) which meant recurring sales of notebooks, homework cards, and folders required of students ALREADY paying tuition.

oh SJB! i heard you closed down. that made me sad.
to be honest i didn’t really like you. your uniforms were terrible and you were dusty and kinda gross. also, what was the deal with the girl’s bathroom being in a musty basement? and having to walk across the parking lot in freezing cold to get to the cafeteria? and why did we have our music class in there?! i liked it better in the rectory. i did like all those old pictures of SJB alumni from the 20’s — 40’s though… and the soft pretzels on thursdays.
i’m still sad you’re gone though. and that monsignor super died. i’ll miss your really bad mural of disney princesses and the lilac tree too!
st. mary’s assumption had nothing on you. you had that fenced in grass area and that huge statue of mary for the coronation. they had brown and pink walls. gag. their mascot was wicked lame too. the CHALLENGERS? wtf is that? GLADIATORS FOR LIFE. RED AND WHITE!
p. s. i still have my i (heart) st. john the baptist school pin you gave me.