For $800 dollars, you can apparently rent a Wake County High School to film a rap video featuring long strings of profanity, inappropriate student-teacher interactions, and tossing around what is perhaps supposed to be a big bundle of marijuana.

WRAL reported on the story, with these quotes from the “rapper” named Jonah Raine:

“I was able to rent it through the [Wake County] Board of Education so it took like two months for the whole process to happen,” explained Raine, who paid over $800 to rent the property.

“I told them there would be no illegal items. There would be no sexual activity, and they were mad because we had a loophole in that. We inferred to having a relationship with a teacher, and me, all I did was shut the door and wink,” he added.

According to the article, an unnamed Wake County Schools spokesperson said they gave Raine permission but that ” there were violations in the video.” That’s a contender for the understatement of the year.

The story is a serious slight to high school students who right now barely get to see the inside of a classroom.  Students in grades 4-12 who are not remaining remote by choice are placed in one of three cohort rotations where they spend two weeks doing remote instruction and only one week in the classroom for face-to-face learning.

Only K-3 students and students with IEPS are being allowed in schools full-time for in-person instruction.

Here’s the video, but fair warning there are enough F-bombs in it to make a sailor blush.

Update – 3/6/21: WCPSS provided the contract information to me upon request.

WCPSS Communications Director Tim Simmons said in an email that “It looks like the contract was for $455. I’m not sure where the $800 figure came from.”

Upon reviewing the contract, the reservation total does read $455.00 and includes $100 for a custodian at $20 an hour for one day and five hours as well as the rental of two classrooms at $30 an hour each for the same amount of time.

The contract can be viewed HERE.

In the email asking for the contract information, I also asked where the money would be used or what department was receiving those funds. I did not get an answer to those questions, but Simmons did say the funds “have been collected, but not disbursed.”

A charter school in the Gaston areas also allowed a rap video to be filmed last December, according to WCNC.

According to that report, the video “shows a gun on the campus, although the YouTube video says, “items in video are not real everything is props.” It also depicts graphic sex actions in the school bathrooms.”

Apparently, the board of the charter school issued a statement last Friday that the principal is “no longer employed” at the school.