In my first year of high school a senior boy sat behind me in freshman history (clearly a winner) and made overtly sexual and offensive comments to me in my ear, in a really disgusting whisper so no one else could hear. He would describe the things he wanted to do to me, things I had never even done with another boy. The harassment went on until I finally started skipping the class to avoid it, not knowing how to report it, having had no support or education on how to confront a situation like this. Finally my counselor asked me why I wasn’t going to class and told her why. It was too late to make up the work, I would have to take the class over next year. They put me in a study hall for the rest of the semester with other kids who had skipped class, where I was again sexually harassed by yet another boy. The entire thing set me back a semester in credits and they put my picture in the freshman section of the yearbook the following year. Eventually the teacher of that class asked me to take an advanced history class the following year, which I passed with flying colors.
