The beginning of last school year heralded the coming of the Chromebooks, whose rollout was anything but smooth. Controversy after controversy battered IHS as students were found “hacking” their devices, enabling developer mode to circumvent the imperious web filter that prohibited threatening websites such as Google and TIME, and for a while the very foundations of ICSD were in peril. Luckily, the intrepid admins were able to deflate the situation and confiscate all offending Chromebooks, leaving students impressed with the dangers of the web and IHS a safe environment for learning once more.
This made it particularly shocking when in March, a photo of Principal Trumble and Associate Principal Hardesty talking over a Chromebook was posted to the ICSD website. The Chromebook was open to a spreadsheet, a perfectly normal item for admins to be discussing. After the image was repeatedly zoomed in and enhanced, however, it told a different tale: Trumble and Hardesty were engaged in a lively discussion about a spreadsheet of AdventureQuest (AQ) characters.
The spreadsheet contained character names such as “Dr. Trumble,” “Premier Trumble,” “His Excellency Dr. Premier Trumble,” and “Yahya Jammeh.” Besides highlighting Trumble’s unusual fixation on lengthy titles, the photo calls into question the purpose of the confiscation of student developer-mode Chromebooks. Were the admins, perhaps, only feigning their concern over illicit Internet trafficking? Instead of promoting proper Internet safety and usage in a high-school environment, were the admins intent on taking all of the Chromebooks for themselves in order to indulge their obsession of funny character names in outdated video games? “At least it wasn’t RuneScape,” commented Tattler Video-Game-Aficionado-in-Chief Daniel Xu ’17. “Now that would have been scandalous.”
Trumble denied any wrongdoing, pointing out that he was not actually playing video games in school—only discussing their artistic merits. The fact that all of his characters were well over level 200 made his claim somewhat questionable. The matter was taken to the Board of Education (BoE) for review, but the case had not proceeded far before Superintendent Brown tweeted his disapproval through his omnipresent Twitter account. “Disappointed with Principal Trumble’s choice of in-school activity, playing games like AQ with low artistic quality (AQ),” Brown declared. Brown was coming off hot after accepting the New York State Superintendent of the Year Award on March 6 and his every pronouncement was taken with the utmost seriousness. “What he said,” BoE President Rob Ainslie said when asked about the situation, before going into executive session for the rest of the month.
Unfortunately, Brown could only ride his success so far before he was discovered logging into his Steam account from a confiscated Chromebook under the name “Big Louvre.” Further investigation by Tattler staff revealed that Brown owned no less than 35,000 video games through platforms including Battle.net, Origin, UPlay, Nintendo 64, Playstation 2, Game Boy Advance, and Gare-Saint-Lazare. Brown’s most played game was World of Warcraft, where he was especially fond of soloing the Temple of Ahn’qiraj (AQ) dungeon.
“This is a delicate situation,” said Tattler News Editor James “Gainz” Yoon during a press conference in late March. “Whether or not AQ’s AQ is higher than the AQ of AQ, it’s clear that Brown’s hypocritical love of AQ transcends whatever merits its AQ may hold over AQ’s AQ. Outside of AQ, though, I’m not one to judge: better leave that one to the Board.” BoE proceedings are still ongoing in executive session, and it remains unclear when, if ever, they will return to public session.
Brown has invoked executive privilege to explain his transgressions. “I’m just appreciating the AQ of these here fine works, and I have to say, the AQ of AQ is a real pick-me-up. Big Louvre approved,” he tweeted. With the permission of the superintendent, it’s safe to assume there will be a rush of video-game playing in IHS’s coming days, although the AQ of said games must be approved beforehand.
Trumble, however, was apprehended playing the non-Big Louvre-approved DragonFable and MechQuest simultaneously on two confiscated Chromebooks. Charges are still pending.
Caption: “Big Louvre’s avatar for all Gare-Saint-Lazare games. How he acquired the likeness of a recent IHS graduate is still under investigation, though a Dark Souls ritual gone wrong is suspected.”