This footage is making some people want to redo their high school days.
A high school in Indiana has gone viral after students posted a TikTok tour of the incredible campus — starting a debate about the inequities among public schools.
Pupils from Carmel HS’s DECA, a student business-focused organization, posted two TikTok videos giving viewers a tour of their school and its many amenities.
The high schoolers showed off their massive campus including an auditorium, planetarium, cafe and market, video studio, radio room, auto shop, woodshop, symphony-orchestra room, indoor swimming pool, esports room, fashion room, jewelry room, ceramics room and several gyms among other facilities.
The tour videos quickly went viral with the first clip amassing 7 million views and the second video 1.1 million. The comments, which have since been turned off, were quickly flooded with people wishing they had attended well-resourced schools like Carmel and others noting the glaring inequities among American public schools.
Some former Carmel High students replied in the comments, divulging that the planetarium was the best nap spot, but that running 10 to 15 minutes from classroom to classroom caused a lot of anxiety.
Others replied that their public high school didn’t have air conditioning or even a cafeteria.
The majority of public schools in America are run by the local government’s school districts and funded by local taxes. School districts with 75% white students receive $23 billion more annually than districts in which 75% of students are nonwhite students, according to the nonprofit EdBuild.
Many viewers noted that the majority of students in Carmel’s videos were white and, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, of Carmel’s 5,327 students, 3,743 of them are white.
Research has shown that increased school spending directly correlates to improved student outcomes (test scores, graduation rates and college attendance) and allows them to benefit throughout their lifetimes (higher wages in adulthood).
The teenage years are a critical time in a person’s life and where and how teens spend those years deeply impacts them. A recent study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reported that teens — girls, especially — are experiencing record-high levels of violence and dangerously poor mental health.
While school spending positively impacts student outcomes, the CDC found that students who feel connected to other students and staff at school are less likely to experience mental health issues and partake in risky behaviors.