Kurt Schuessler

Most students enrolled in Lake Forest High School can expect a balanced education that cultivates democratic values in addition to providing instruction in the subject matter.

Not so for those students unfortunate enough to be sent to the fiefdom of Kurt Schuessler in Room 231.

Schuessler rules over his classroom like a lord over his kingdom, a level of the Linnaean system of biological classification that he places great emphasis upon, multiple panicked students said between gasps.

At one point last semester, Schuessler even went so far as to impose a dictatorial limit on the number of times that students can say the word “ni!” in a given class period, a reference to the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The so-called “Ni Cap” has allowed Schuessler to order students to bring money and treats to class, and in one case he even told one of his Early Bird AP Biology students to bring him a shrubbery.

“Yeah, he had, like, this Ni Cap thing, and he would record it when any of us said ‘Ni!’ and after seven times he would start telling people to bring treats and stuff. There was this whole Early Bird Ni Contract that he forced on us,” junior and current AP Biology student Waldo Fibspree said.

“I felt like my civil rights were being, like, violated or something bad like that,” he continued. “Isn’t there, like, freedom of speech guaranteed in the Declaration of Independence or whatever they call it these days?”

All Schuessler students interviewed by The Forest Scout quickly agreed that the biology teacher’s most bizarre habit is his odd fondness for snakes. He has allegedly communed with the beasts on several occasions, similar to Voldemort in the Harry Potter series of novels.

“He has this really big snake, Betsy,” freshman Jimmy [last name withheld at the request of the source] said. “He feeds her all sorts of things, mostly pencil shavings and late homework, and sometimes he takes her out and plops her on somebody’s desk when they’re on their phone.”

“I mean, it makes it kinda fun, but sometimes I just want to be able to check my Insta without having to worry about being bitten to death by a snake,” he said.