Ghoul School: Late Passes from the Afterlife

Ever hear something move down the hallway after hours and hope it’s just the custodian… and not someone from the class of 1923 still trying to make it to 4th period? 

In this chillingly funny episode of Vice Principal UnOfficed, host Lisa Hill opens the creaky classroom door to stories of haunted schools—where whispered legends refuse to graduate and roll calls include the dearly departed. Lisa also sits down with her friend and former colleague Tracy Holland, who shares her own eerie experience inside a school that might still have a few uninvited guests roaming the halls.

So grab your flashlight, clutch your hall pass, and get ready to laugh your way through the afterlife of education.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Sponsor Messages
• 1:23 Creepy Hook And Episode Theme
• 2:53 Lisa’s Belief In The Paranormal
• 4:28 Daytime Visit To Villisca Axe Murder House
• 7:13 Haunted Schools Curiosity Sparks
• 8:52 The Singing Girl In The Hallway
• 10:31 The Isabel Wallace Ghost Light Legend
• 13:30 Guest Intro: Tracy Holland
• 15:01 Building’s Industrial Past And Layout
• 17:02 5 a.m. Cart Sounds And Empty Floors
• 20:40 Processing Fear And Acknowledging Presences
• 22:30 Belief, Skepticism, And Possible Origins
• 24:32 The Basement And The Red Door
• 26:10 Wrap-Up, Takeaways, And Next Teaser
• 29:13 Reviews, Follows, And Listener Stories

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:00

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Get started today at Wheeze Tease.com. Ever hear something move down the school hallway after hours and hope it's just the custodian? And not something from the class of 1923 still trying to make its way to fourth period. In this chilling, funny episode of Vice Principal in Office, join host Lisa Hill as she opens up the creaky classroom doors to the stories of haunted schools, from whispered legends that refuse to graduate to roll calls of the dearly departed. This episode proves some students really do stick around forever. Lisa is also joined by her friend and former colleague, Tracy Holland, who shares her own eerie encounter working in a supposedly haunted school building. Her story adds a first-hand twist that'll make you rethink those mysterious locker door slamming and flickering hallway lights. Now, grab your flashlight and your hall pass because it's time to get laughing and learning. Attention students, I mean listeners. The stories in this podcast are told from the host's personal and farcical point of view. All names and identifiers have been omitted or altered to protect identities. Now get to class and enjoy the show. Since my last episode, I have survived a homecoming week, dance included, tried and still trying to find a paraprofessional who will take and keep a job, and one round of parent-teacher conferences, all of which can be scary. So, to stick with the theme of things being scary in the scary month of October, today's episode will take us down the haunted hallways of K-12 schools. I know, I know. Some of you don't believe in ghosts, and that's totally okay. As for me, I do. Why? Because I just can't believe that something as powerful as a human life with all of its energy and presence simply disappears the moment we're gone. Take my dad, for example. I sense his presence while I'm driving. Now I know for some people that sounds crazy, but I swear it's true. There are times when I'm driving along and I suddenly feel my dad's presence, along with the smell of his Winston cigarettes, which made me throw up as a kid. I then turn to my right and look at the passenger seat. And then I have a little conversation with my dad. My mom has the same thing happen to her, but my dad visits her town home, a home he never lived in. Of course, my husband thinks all of this is a little kooky, and you might too, but I don't. In fact, I'm so fascinated by the paranormal that I actually convinced my husband to take a trip with me to visit the Velisca Axe Murder House. Oh, please tell me you've at least heard of the Velisca Axe Murder House? No? Okay, here's the short version. The Veliska Axe Murder House. It's the only place in Iowa where spending the night might come with a side of spectral supervision. You see, back in 1912, the quiet little town of Vallisca woke up to one of the creepiest unsolved murders in American history. An entire family and two overnight guests were murdered in their sleep, and the killer was never caught. The house has since been restored to its early 1900s decor. Visitors can still tour the house and even stay overnight, though most don't make it till morning without at least one light left on. As for me and my visit, I'm kind of a chicken when it comes to things going bump in the night. So, my husband and I visited the Veliska Axe Murder House during the day. Because I've seen enough paranormal investigation shows to know that nighttime is for the brave, and I'm not brave. So daylight it was. Anyway, my husband and I toured the house on our own. He didn't stay long and instead ended up chatting with the homestead steward, while I quietly wandered from room to room, trying to wrap my head around how and why those murders could have happened. To be honest, the whole house didn't feel scary so much as heavy, like the walls were still holding on to grief. Every room had this quiet sadness about it, except for the attic. Supposedly, that's where the murderer may have hidden, waiting for everyone to fall asleep. The moment I stepped inside the attic, the air changed. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up, and that attic well, it just felt eerie. It felt aware. The whole experience left me unsettled, but more sad than scared. If you want to know more about the Velisca Axe Murder House, check out the link in the show notes. Just maybe don't click it alone in the dark, if you know what I mean. Now, me being me, my visit to the Velisca Axe Murder House really sparked my curiosity. So I started wondering if any of the schools I'd worked in had ghost stories of their own. You know, the kind they get whispered about during late-night conferences, or when the motion sensor lights flick on with no one there. Turns out, more than one school I worked at made the haunted honor roll. Which is the reason I titled this episode Ghoul School: Late Passes from the Afterlife. Of course, I really wanted to call this episode, even if a school isn't haunted, it still feels like it is because between the weird vibes, creepy hallways, and the truly scary stuff that happens inside, ghouls and schools is just shit you can't make up. Really, Lisa? Sorry, Mom, but I've worked in some odd school settings that make me think those buildings had to be haunted. What else would cause all those crazy things to go bump down the hallway? I mean, you have to agree with me that most schools already feel haunted after 9 p.m. The lights flicker, the copy machine whirrs on its own, and there's always that one locker that creaks open like it's got a story to tell. So, what are the stories behind the schools I worked in? Let me tell you. One, I'm a chicken, and two, I'm a chicken who had young children at home. So, no late nights for me. However, local stories tell a different tale. Supposedly, after dark, a little girl's voice could be heard singing through the hallways late at night. Custodians locking up for the evening often reported hearing a soft melodic tune echoing down the corridor long after everyone else had gone home. Of course, I did what any curious vice principal would do. I went looking for proof. Old records, archived newspapers, even a rogue PTA rumor that got out of hand. But I got nothing. No reports of tragedy, no student ghost, no backstory at all. Just the song. And somehow that makes it even creepier. Now a bang or a door slam, that could be physics. But a little girl singing in an empty hallway? That's when even the vice principal decides detention can wait till morning. Still, I can't help but love this story, because every educator knows schools have personalities. They hum, they sigh, they hold on to the echoes of every student who ever walked their halls. So maybe this ghost story isn't here to scare anyone. Maybe she just never heard the final bell and decided to stick around. Though, not all ghosts stay inside the school. I once worked in a town where the haunting happened outside, a glowing red orb that locals still whisper about. Supposedly, the ghost light, as it had been named, had been around for more than a century. The story traces back to Isabel Wallace, a 22-year-old who died when her farmhouse burned in 1872. Locals say the light is her spirit, still flickering where her home once stood. People described it as a bright red light, about the size of a dinner plate fading to orange at the edges. Sometimes it just hangs there, still and silent. Other times it drifts or bounces down a country lane like it's got somewhere to be. Over the decades, the light has drawn midnight visitors, local teenagers, and the occasional ghost hunter, armed with flashlights and way too much confidence. A few pranksters even tried to fake it with lanterns and car lights, but none of them ever matched that strange pulsing glow that seemed to come from nowhere. And because this is the Midwest, you know, where folklore sits right next to the Friday night football schedule, the town even held a ghost light festival for a few years, complete with a parade and storytelling night. Me? I'm a practical vice principal who also keeps one eye on the horizon. So if that red ghost light of Isabel Wallace decided to drift in from the edge of town while I was heading home from a Friday night football game, let's just say I would have been handing out light passes from the afterlife and calling it professional development. Luckily, I never saw the ghost light, which was partly due to me speeding down the highway at 90 miles per hour. No ghost from the 1800s was going to catch me. While I did manage to outrun Isabel's ghostly glow, I couldn't quite outrun my curiosity. The truth is, you don't need an old farmhouse or a cornfield to find a haunting. Sometimes the strangest stories come from the very schools we've worked in. Which brings me to this episode's guest, Tracy Holland. Tracy is a dear friend and former colleague who swears the building we worked in had a few unexplained noises that weren't quite on the maintenance schedule. Hey! Hello! Can you hear me? Can you see me? I can't see you. You've got your camera. Oh my god. There's there. There's my friend. Tell us a little bit about yourself.

SPEAKER_00: 13:44

My name is Tracy Holland. I teach a career in tech class at a career in tech building. I've been teaching for 28 years. And five of those wonderful years were with you. They were fun. They were a lot of fun. I love my job. I love my kids. And I love my building.

SPEAKER_01: 14:11

And I know you believe in the paranormal. I know you've seen a psychic, and we've talked about that because I believe in all that too. How did you first realize the school you're in was haunted?

SPEAKER_00: 14:24

Yes, I do believe in the paranormal. I've been to numerous mediums and psychics. I know that it's not for everybody. And so it's something that I don't really advertise to many people. But our building, the history of our building in 1917 used to be a Ford plant where they built Model T's. And our building is situated right by a river, a prominent river, and railroad tracks. And the railroad tracks would serve as platforms for the Model T shipping area. And it was a very prominent Model T factory, I believe, for around 20 years. After that, it became an aerospace where they would build things for aerospace. I don't know. And then after that, it became a high school. So there is some, I'm assuming, some people that have passed away within this building. I'm thinking a very high-tech industrious building. There probably was some fatalities. Probably not. And I think it was running 24-7. You'd have certain shifts. So, you know, the plant was going and operating multiple times a day. Anyway, that's the backstory of the building. The building is five stories, has a creepier than hell basement, as you and I have been in. But that doesn't really, it didn't that didn't creep me out as much as the story I'm gonna tell you.

SPEAKER_01: 16:19

Okay.

SPEAKER_00: 16:19

So, and this has happened numerous times to me. I am a person that likes to get up early and I like to get to work early, and I'm talking like 5 15 in the morning. And a lot of times I'm the only one in this ginormous building. We do have a lot of homeless population around the building, and that never really upset me as much as the paranormal activity that go on that goes on in the building when no one else is there but me. And I will swear to this on the life of my kids that this is what I hear. So I will be working in my classroom, and granted, it's like 5 15, 5 30 in the morning, and I am the only one in the building, and I'm pretty no one else is there because Big John doesn't get in until like close to six o'clock. I do lock myself in my room. I always lock myself in my room, but I will be I would be working at my station, and I would hear a cart running from one end of the building above me, on the floor above me, from one end of the building, and get progressively noisier going to the other side. So you could hear it, and it just sounded like someone was taking a cart and rolling it, you know, or a big marble and rolling it. And a lot of times it would make me stop and just listen. And I never really thought about it because I I'm not a pretty, I'm not, I don't get spooked too often or too, it doesn't spook me. But then there was this one time when it was so loud that I said, there's got to be somebody up there, and so I left my classroom at 5 30 in the morning, and I ran up the stairs because it was it sounded like it was just right above me, and I went out there and there was nobody there, nobody, and at that point I started talking to the whoever is in the building, okay, okay, and I don't know if I if I started talking to them to ease my mind or my conscience, but it never really personally bothered me. I knew that we had a teacher that did die in the building probably 15-20 years ago, but that person died on the third floor, which is the floor that I am on, and everything that I hear is always above me. So I would like to think that it's carts from back in the Model T era, that maybe somebody was crushed on a cart, or you know, your imagination just kind of goes wild and you start thinking of these fantasies and and and things. And so I've just learned to accept it, and I'm not afraid of it. Obviously, I am still at school at this hour of the day. It it really doesn't bother me, but I will swear that I hear it often. So at least once a week or oh, probably once more a month, okay. Once a month, and I've been there 28 years.

SPEAKER_01: 20:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_00: 20:15

So have you had any other experiences in the building? Other than just feeling presence in the building, no, and usually this heavy feeling is when I'm alone. When I'm alone in the morning, early hours of the morning. So I have no physical concrete evidence that anything is going on, but I can feel it, I can hear it. And if you've asked some of my colleagues who have been there before too, they'll tell you they have heard things as well. So I I also know that one time I really heard it and I came down and told you, you know, oh Lord, you have got to hear what I what just happened. Yeah. But it doesn't freak you out. It it did in the beginning, you know, it it's it's it's an unsettling feeling of of unknown, like someone is watching you, they're invading, you know, or they just want to seek, you know, affirmation that they're there. You they want you to acknowledge them. And so I acknowledge them. Hey, you know, cool. Yeah, yeah. But it is such an eerie feeling when you're there all by yourself, and to hear the rumble of a cart, uh and you know, like a big heavy cart just rolling down the hallway, you know, is it it it's unnerving. It can be unnerving. And there aren't big heavy carts in that building anymore. No, not at all. And definitely not ab not on the floor above me. No.

SPEAKER_01: 22:10

No, you uh yeah, I I know what's above you, so yeah. Um okay. Have you ever had any other experiences outside of the building? No. I haven't. All right. Well, I find it very interesting because I worked in a uh district one time where there was a a ghost light outside by the football field, and after a football game, I would drive like hell to get away from that thing, in case you saw it, because it scared me. Somebody had died back in the 1800s, and whether this was a folklore or not, people would say, Nope, you're gonna see the the ghost light. And I wasn't, I was getting out of there.

SPEAKER_00: 22:55

Some people I find you know, you're either you're either on one side of the fence or the other. You're you either believe in the paranormal or you don't. You you think it's a hoax. And I have just been to enough mediums to to know that I am a true believer. I was very skeptic in the beginning until they would prove me wrong. And I do believe that people died in my building. I don't know for a fact if they do. I do know of one teacher for a fact that did, but I I almost think that this goes back to the Ford plant Model T days when, you know, maybe unsanitary and unsanitary conditions where people were working, not a lot of ocean regulations going on at that time. And I'm sure a lot of people lost their lives.

SPEAKER_01: 23:57

Oh, I'm sure they did back then.

SPEAKER_00: 23:59

Yeah, and and and I want to think that this type of noise is that type of machinery that is going down up and down the the floor because the structure of the building has not changed. The the floors are all still there, you know. We've just modernized it. Sure. All right.

SPEAKER_01: 24:25

Well, I believe you uh because I was never gonna be alone in that building at night. I never stayed.

SPEAKER_00: 24:33

Um I know you you were like, I can't believe that you get up that early and you come down here all by yourself.

SPEAKER_01: 24:40

Yeah, no, I'm I wasn't gonna do that. I believe, but I'm chicken. I did visit the Velisca Axe murder house and it felt very heavy and sad. And the attic creeped me out. I'm like, nope, not gotta go. And my husband and I, we were the only ones in there at the time. Got to tour the thing by ourselves, and like, I'm not gonna stick around to see if something happens. So I'm a chicken, I'm not as brave as you.

SPEAKER_00: 25:08

Well, like I said, I I believe that they are there. I think it's a mindset. I believe that they're there, I believe that they're not there to harm us. I believe that they are there to make themselves present and open and they want us to be aware that that they were there.

SPEAKER_01: 25:26

So I probably need to change my thinking, but when it's dark, dark is scary. So I'm not doing that.

SPEAKER_00: 25:34

And it's very dark. It is really dark. It's black, dark, you know that.

SPEAKER_01: 25:39

Yes, yes. Well, any other things you want to share about the paranormal and school?

SPEAKER_00: 25:46

I am pretty sure that all schools are somewhat haunted in some aspects. But from what I've read and what I have listened to about the paranormal, they're not there to harm us, they're not there to scare us. They just want us to recognize them. Sure.

SPEAKER_01: 26:05

And schools have a lot of energy.

SPEAKER_00: 26:07

Absolutely. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01: 26:10

I don't think that energy dies.

SPEAKER_00: 26:12

And I and I think that they latch on to maybe a person that they can sense they believe um that they are still present and in the building. But yeah, I I have strong feelings about the paranormal and that they just want to tell their story. Sure. Yeah. Or they think you're cute. Nope. I doubt if that's it, Lisa.

unknown: 26:42

You're cute.

SPEAKER_00: 26:46

That's it. That's all I got. I would love to have like a specialist come in and look at our building. Oh, yeah. I think that, you know, they would they would find a treasure trove of of good stuff.

SPEAKER_01: 27:03

Well, I know in that basement alone, it's like time stopped.

SPEAKER_00: 27:07

Time just stopped. That's just hard. That's now the yeah, the basement I don't want to go down into. I don't. It is it is kind of it is scary, but I'm also claustrophobic. So I don't want to go down in that tiny little basement either.

SPEAKER_01: 27:25

I have, but I always made sure someone was with me. So that red door. That's crazy. You walk into it, yeah. Creepy red door. I have a picture of that. I might put that on my uh website.

SPEAKER_00: 27:39

Yeah, your audience needs to see this creepy red door. That was really creepy.

SPEAKER_01: 27:45

It's the first thing I saw. I thought, what am I doing down here? Anyway, well, I appreciate it for sharing your story with us. And I'm gonna get you back for more stories because you're full of stories.

SPEAKER_00: 27:57

I'm full of stories, but we'll have to have wine with those. We can do that.

SPEAKER_01: 28:02

We we can do a drinking episode on why you should drink, especially if you're an educator.

SPEAKER_00: 28:09

Absolutely. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01: 28:12

Okay, well, we'll we'll wrap it up right here. Well, kids, the dismissal bell is ringing. So until next time on Vice Principal in Office, push in your chair, put your name on your paper, be kind to your classmates, put your phone away, and use your indoor voice. Or not, thanks for listening. And I hope you enjoyed the tales from Vice Principal and Office as much as I enjoyed sharing them. And it is also my hope that you were not only entertained by this episode, but that you walked away with a little nugget of knowledge that gave you some insight on how working in a school is not for the faint of heart. And as I've said before, life is short, so you gotta do the best you can to leave the world in a better place than when you got here. And of course, for the love of God, see the humor in life. It's a lot more fun and a little easier to get through the ickin life with a smile on your face. Catch you next time on Vice Principal in Office. Next time on Vice Principal in Office, join me, your host, Lisa Hill, on November 4th as I dive into stories about school security guards, the whistleblowing, rule-enforcing, over-the-radio communicating crew that keeps schools safish. Because when it comes to keeping order, sometimes the biggest disruption is the one wearing the badge. Hey students, I mean listeners. Thanks again for tuning in. And if you've enjoyed today's show, please leave me a review. It really helps grow the show. And don't forget to hit the follow button so you don't miss an episode. Trust me, you don't want to be late for this detention. And listeners. If you've got a school story of your own that you think would fit Vice Principal on Office, I'd love to hear it. Just head to my podcast website and send me your story. And who knows, your story might even get a shout-out in a future episode. Thanks so much for listening and for your support. Vice Principal on Office is an independent podcast with everything you hear done by me, Lisa Hill, and supported through Buzzsprout. Any information from today's show, along with any links and resources, are available in the show's notes. So if you want to do a little homework and dive deeper into anything I've mentioned, head over to my podcast website and check it out. And a big thank you to Matthew Chiam with Pixabay for the show's marvelous theme music. And of course, a huge shout out to my mother. This podcast is for the purpose of entertainment only, like the recess of your day, and not a platform for debates about public education. Though you never know, you can learn something. And just a reminder that the stories shared in this podcast represent one lens, which is based on my personal experiences and interpretations, and also reflect my unique perspective through humor. Names, dates, and places have been changed or omitted to protect identities and should not be considered universally applicable. Until next time, keep laughing and learning.