Haunted School Ghost Stories

Scary stories always seem to be set in creepy haunted houses, abandoned asylums, or any other spooky old building. But what about scary stories set in a school? In the cafeteria? In the locker room? What if the scary story is that you’ll get permanent failure marks on your report card unless you finish your assignments by tomorrow? Scary school ghost stories are often not what people expect. Instead of being about a mean janitor, strange noises coming from an empty classroom or a creepy janitor who lurks around after hours, these are more sinister than you might have thought. From possessed lockers to phantom teachers and spectral students with unfinished business, these are some of the scariest school ghost stories we could find…

The Haunted School Bus:
There are many ghost stories about haunted school buses, but this one is particularly chilling because it involves a real tragedy. In December of 1967, a school bus plunged off an icy bridge in New Jersey, killing all the children onboard. The accident occurred on the same road where a bus crash killed 22 children just nine years earlier. The accident and the many subsequent ghosts stories associated with it have since become known as “the haunted bus disaster.” Because this accident was so devastating, it’s possible that the place, time, and event all combined to produce a powerfully charged ghost story. A couple of years after the accident, a police officer was patrolling the area near the site of the accident when he saw a bus coming around the corner toward him. The bus was moving at a high speed, but there was no one behind the wheel.

Drowning in the Swimming Pool:
Some of the most terrifying ghost stories are ones that are based on real events, and that’s what happened at the swimming pool at a school in Kentucky. Back in the 1970s, an 11-year-old boy drowned in the school’s swimming pool after he blacked out during swimming class. No one noticed what happened until the boy’s body was discovered by a janitor who was cleaning up after the pool had been drained and shut down for the day. The janitor was so traumatized by what he saw that he quit his job the next day. And many years later, when the story came out, it was discovered that the janitor was not at the school on the day of the drowning. In fact, he had died years earlier. One teacher who witnessed the event said she’d seen other strange things at the school since the drowning, including shadowy misty figures and bright lights that appeared and disappeared suddenly.

The Creepy Janitor:
As one of the scariest school ghost stories, this one is particularly creepy because it happens in what should be a safe, clean environment: a school. A story about a haunted school locker room started in the 1980s when a group of students reported hearing strange noises coming from the locker room during the night. When a janitor was called to investigate, he found an old mop and broom that no one recognized. The janitor put the mop and broom in a closet and thought nothing more about it. When the janitor reported the next day that he’d found the mop and broom but had no idea whose they were, the students were surprised. Some claimed to remember seeing the mop and broom lying unattended in the locker room the night before, while they were studying in the library. The mop and broom were never seen again, and no one knows what caused them to appear in the locker room or why they were there.

Possessed Lockers:
Some haunted school ghost stories are so bizarre that they’re almost humorous, but this one is still terrifying. A school in New York was plagued by haunted lockers back in the 1930s, unusual given that most haunted school ghost stories happen in more modern times. The strangest part of this story is the students themselves, who were so scared of the locker ghosts that they refused to go near their own lockers. So extreme was their fear that school officials had to bring in janitors to open and close the lockers for the students. One janitor found that the locker doors had been nailed shut with large nails, and when he tried to pry them open, he was thrown across the room. The janitor reported seeing some sort of shadowy creature right before he was thrown across the room, as if whatever was in the locker had thrown him with its mind.

Phantom Teachers:
One of the scariest haunted school ghost stories is about a ghost who is suddenly there one day and gone the next. This particular ghost story happens in a high school in Iowa, and it’s about a ghost who comes to school every year for one day only. The school, which is nearly 100 years old, has a tradition of having students dress up as people from the past for a haunted history day where everyone tries to scare each other with stories of the past. The students told stories about a woman from the 1920s who came dressed in a long black dress that touched the floor, with a large necklace and a fancy wig. She once told a student that she had no one to speak to, and then she vanished. People wondered where she went, but they never found out.

Ghostly Students:
Another haunted school ghost story is about a ghost who seems to have unfinished business and may be looking for help. This story comes from a high school in Massachusetts and involves a young woman who died in a car accident. One night, as a janitor was cleaning up, he found a note on the floor of the school’s library. The janitor couldn’t read the handwriting, so he took the note to a librarian, who read it silently, then handed it back to the janitor. The janitor didn’t know what the note said and told the librarian that he wanted to throw it in the trash. But the librarian stopped him. She said that the note was important, and it needed to be kept somewhere safe where it could be found by its owner. The janitor still doesn’t know what was in the note, and he never threw it away. He just stuck it in a drawer somewhere and forgot about it.

The Lonely Boy in the Library:
Finally, one of the scariest haunted school ghost stories is about a ghost who has been haunting the same place for decades. This story comes from a high school in Texas, and it involves a ghost who is trapped in the school’s library. The story goes that a boy who was obsessed with science and invention took out a library book one day and left it on a table when he got distracted. He forgot about the book, and when he went back to get it, it was gone. Later, the boy found out that someone else had taken the book, but the boy was too embarrassed to ask for it back. The boy became obsessed with the book, so much so that he spent all his free time in the library, just hoping that the book would turn up. The boy died before he could get the book back, and ever since then, people have reported seeing a teenage boy sitting at one of the library tables, reading.

Scary Conclusion:
If you find yourself in a school, be careful not to get roped into a ghost story. While it may be genuinely terrifying, it would be a shame to be fooled by a good story. Remember, most of these stories are incredibly old and have probably been retold many times. You’ll have a better chance of getting out of the story alive if you don’t take it too seriously. Whether you’re in a creepy old house or a school, it’s always a good idea to bring a friend along with you when you go looking for ghosts. Not only is it safer to explore with a friend, but you can also compare notes afterwards and see if you had the same experience. When it comes to scaring yourself silly with ghost stories, the more the merrier!