Draft:Oberlin Magnet Middle School

Oberlin
Oberlin is an average-sized middle school that sits near Five Points in downtown Raleigh, on Oberlin Road. Oberlin, as of 2024, has a student population of 1,202. Oberlin is a magnet school and is known for its well-rounded language programs. At Oberlin, students can sign up for Spanish, French, and Chinese courses. Oberlin's main school rival is Martin Middle. Oberlin's team name is the Trailblazers and they have amassed many championships, mostly under the name Daniels Middle. This changed in 2020 when Oberlin had to undergo a complete change in appearance and name as the Wake County School Board deemed the name Daniels unfit for modern times as the school was named after a well-known writer, Josephus Daniels. Daniels was a well-known White supremacist and most of his writing sparked race riots across NC.

Oberlin's Sport's Record
Boys: Football - 1984, 1986, 1991, 1994, 1996, 1999, 2002, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2011, 2014, 2017, 2022, 2023

Soccer - 1985, 1986, 1987, 1989, 1991, 2006, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2014, 2016, 2017, *2020, 2022, 2023, 2024

Track - 1989, 1998, 2000, 2011, 2013, 2015, 2017,2018, 2024

Basketball - 1991-1992, 1994-1995, 1997-1998, 1999-2000, 2001-2002, 2002-2003, 2004-2005, 2006-2007, 2007-2008, 2008-2009, 2018-2019, 2022-2023

Girls: Basketball – 1987-1988, 1988-1989, 1990-1991, 1991-1992, 1994-1995, 1995-1996, 2021-2022

Volleyball – 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2007, 2008, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2016, 2018, 2023

Soccer – 1991, 1994, 1996, 1998, 1999, 2004, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2011, 2013, 2015, 2017,2019, 2022

Track – 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1999, 2000, 2012, 2016, 2019, *2020, 2022

Softball – 2008, 2011, *2020

Cheerleading - 2017 WCPSS Large Division Champions||2018 WCPSS Large Division Champions||2018 WCPSS Grand Champions||2019 WCPSS Large Division Champions || 2022 WCPSS Large Division & Grand Champions, 2022 State Champions || 2023 State Champions || 2024 Large Division, Grand Champions & State Champions

Stories From Oberlin
Fire Alarm Week

One morning at Oberlin Middle, children from sixth to eighth graders sat in their classrooms, oblivious to what eternal legacy would unfold in the next 5 days. Many had pulled the fire alarm before yet those were all one-day occurrences and they had been punished and dealt with. This week was not your normal week at Oberlin Middle. As kids sat in their classroom the fire alarm went off at random. The children in their classrooms looked to their teacher, asking if this was a regular drill. The teachers shrugged, not having info on the situation, and walked their classes out to their predetermined escape routes for normal fire drills. This fire drill ended with classmates and teachers alike still knowing nothing about the reason for this drill. Most believed it was just a monthly routine drill like any other month. The next day, the fire alarm went off again. This surprised many students and faculty alike as a double fire alarm was extremely rare. Still, people thought that this was a student pulling the fire alarm after a monthly one had gone off the day prior. This theory was debunked the next day as the fire alarm was pulled for the third time in a row. This was unheard of and now students were starting to catch on to the fact this must have been a planned event. This plot was most likely the doing of a group of students and not one individual. These fire alarms went on for the next two days and on Friday, the last fire alarm was pulled. Sadly no one has accurate info about the perpetrators where and the school was not willing to share any information on the matter with us or anyone else. All we know was it was planned from the beginning and every time the alarm was pulled as a prank the Raleigh Fire Department fined the school an undisclosed amount of money. This week will go down as one of the most impactful and strange weeks in Oberlin's history.

The Social Studies Debacle

The Globetrotter’s social studies teaching role was changed an astounding number of times during the 23-24 school year. The year began with teacher Mr. Hailey, who was beloved by students. Many would attempt to add him on snapchat, alas many to no avail. He had many silly moments during this year, and some beloved reenactments took place. One reenactment that took place captured the crossing of the Delaware river. Mr. Hailey would request that students move around and join him during these occasions. Around that time Hurricane Idalia would strike the U.S. state of Florida, which Mr. Hailey took great interest in. He would go on to call up a storm-chaser friend of his on multiple occasions during class periods to get reports on the hurricane. This would lead to jokes amongst students of Mr. Hailey trying to reenact the hurricane. Students portrayed him in sentences such as, “Alright, you, stand up and be the hurricane. Just spin around real fast.” and “You guys go over there and be the houses, I want y’all to fall down when the hurricane hits ya’.” Eventually the beloved Mr. Hailey, who had worked at the school for many years, was forced to move back to his home state of South Carolina, where his father was sick. This led to the introduction of Mrs. Armstrong. Her role was to serve as a potential long-term substitute until a candidate was found. Due to the busy nature of the class, some assignments were given out at incorrect times. Shortly after these incidents, students caught wind of a potential hire. Sure enough, later that week, students would be introduced to a new social studies teacher Mrs. Barto. Barto was strongly disliked by many students on the team. Unbeknownst to all but a handful of students on the team, Mrs. Barto was also planning on leaving the school to go be with her family in times of worry. The handful of students who found out were alarmed by an odd-looking paper that was passed out to their table whilst Barto was attempting to pass out the day’s first assignment. The paper was headed by the words “Resignation Letter” in bold. It was requested that this info be kept confidential, but reports seeped through the cracks nonetheless. The day that 10 or so students had been long awaiting arrived, and with no advanced notice, Barto informed her classes that she would be quitting. At around 9:16 AM EST the team was alerted of her departure by cheers echoing throughout the hallways of those excited about her departure. Following her resignation

The One Pager Emergency

Towards the end of the 22-23 school year, busy work became ever-present in many classes. Students began to lose patience with said assignments and their burnout was apparent. In Mrs. Richard's class, located at the end of the hallway on the lower level 7th Grade wing (Embers Team), a one-pager was assigned. Most in the class completed the assignment, but some were fed up and neglected it. As the due date grew closer, a student named Jalal couldn’t force himself to finish the assignment. This led him to create a poster that he would present to Mrs. Richards detailing reasons why he shouldn’t have to complete the assignment. That morning, he donned a suit and tie and headed for school with his poster. The school was on an adjusted Trailblazer schedule, causing lunch to be eaten in the classroom. He seized the opportunity to present his poster to Mrs. Richards during this adjusted lunch period. The reasons on the poster have been lost to time, but we can confirm the 4th reason stated: How will it affect Lebron’s legacy? His classmates will forever admire Jalal’s courageous actions and protests. He would go on to transfer schools the following year, leaving many students in a distraught and devastated state.

The Great Brawl Stars Race

Oberlin Middle’s Phoenix team and practically the whole school became utterly obsessed with the widely popular game “Brawl Stars”. This game consisted of players in a match with other players online. There are many different game modes to brawl stars and these game modes consist of you in a 1 VS All or Team VS Team scenario. In these game modes if you win you gain trophies. Many rivalries and competitions were started over who could gain the most trophies so students started to plan a “ Great Brawl Stars Race”. This event would consist of students restarting their save files for the game so that everyone would start on equal grounds. Everyone gathered and restarted their saves at the same time so that no one would have a disadvantage. Students played endlessly to be the first to get to 2500 trophies before their fellow classmates. The winner of this race’s name has been lost through salty anger and jealous commitment to the game. Some say they won, some say people cheated to win, I guess we will never know.

WCPSS Social Media Threat Swarm

Oberlin Magnet Middle was a part of the greater WCPSS social media threat swarm event of February 2023. Earlier in the month shots had been fired in the proximity of Needham Broughton HS. The idea of a threat regarding WCPSS schools prompted multiple social media threats, February 3rd being the peak of these threats. There are mixed reports on what was threatened in the hoaxes, but a popular recounting is that a drive-by shooting was threatened on an Instagram or Snapchat story prior to the school day. School went on regardless, but with many schools in the system experiencing threats, a Code Yellow was declared for Oberlin. Earlier in the month multiple incidents occurred, but this was the first Oberlin was involved in. Multiple schools were affected such as Zebulon Middle and Elementary, and East Garner Middle. East Garner shared a special connection to Oberlin Middle on this day as a live stream on the WRAL website was shared amongst students. In the agriculture classroom on the sixth-grade wing, adjacent to the Pioneer’s team, the broadcast was put on the board. A helicopter view could be seen following the release of students after the Code Red at East Garner Middle. The broadcast eventually switched to interviews with parents and the Wake County Deputy Sheriff. Around this time the Code Yellow at Oberlin was dismissed. The Sheriff went on to mention the disturbing fact that 346 reports of violent incidents, threats, etc. had been reported that year already. Worry and angst built among students, leading to multiple not coming to school on a multitude of days in February, though the tension, fortunately, dissipated heading into April. The significance of these weeks in early February is still not lost on those who were in WCPSS at the time.

The Red Paint Bomber

The Red Paint Bomber incident was one of the wildest widespread rumors in Oberlin history as students' worries heightened and more words started to spread like wildfire around classrooms. An almost infecting story started to be spread that an unknown person had written in the bathroom of the Astros hallway that they were going to bomb the school at a certain time. Teachers started to lock doors and people started to panic as they truly believed that a bombing was inevitable. Looking back on it, the thought of a sixth grader truly obtaining a bomb sounds almost impossible yet the adolescent mind is easily influenced especially by stress. In the end, the threats were debunked and teachers went back to normal yet many students were still distraught by the thought of a forthcoming bomb. Many teachers including Mrs. Hoffman were alarmed and mad the situation seemed worse than it was rushing and yelling and slamming doors. In the end, the rumors were all fake and no one got hurt.

The Gas Leak

Coming Soon