Throughout the dangerous jungle of the American high school, there wanders a jaguar, hungry for a different kind of prey. Instead of hunting and killing his peers in the jungle, he discreetly offers them bags of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos.

This jaguar’s prey is hungry high schoolers with bellies to fill and money to spend and bellies to fill. While jaguars in real jungles are attracted to the sounds of unsuspecting victims carelessly wandering through the undergrowth, the high school jaguar is summoned by two words: “You sellin?”

Money is coveted by kids in high school, and different students find different approaches to earning money, be it by legal, honest ways or by illegal, shadier ones. One interesting way to make money is by selling snacks in school.

Business is going well for Bobby Smith.  Selling snacks out of a duffel bag has proven to be lucrative.

Curt Rakestraw teaches AP Government and AP World History at White Station. He doesn’t often deal with people selling snacks in his class, but he did encounter many snack salesmen at East High School, where he previously taught.

“I was a regular policer of the hallways at East. I did manage to shut down the Cheeto trade in my hallway,” Rakestraw said.

Rakestraw had positive remarks about the culprits he cracked down on.

“I think [selling snacks] reflects on them as a person in a positive way; it shows, you know, they have a little more entrepreneur in them. They’re doing what we want in America; they’re taking advantage of an economic opportunity that’s there. They’ve identified a market, they’ve identified a good the market wants, and they’ve found a way to distribute that good. That’s day one economics…it shows that the student has initiative, that they’re willing to work hard. Ultimately, they are selling Cheetos and they’re not selling weed, and that’s a good thing,” Rakestraw said.

However, safety is the number one priority for White Station students, and Rakestraw feels strongly that the school policy should be enforced.

On the other side of the spectrum, there are the kids who sell foods for fundraisers. These students are raising money for school sponsored activities, but they are ultimately still breaking the rules.

“Well it’s a district policy, and it’s not necessarily aimed at fundraisers.. but it is aimed at the kids, like, selling a backpack full of Cheetos,” said Rakestraw.

Purchasing any snack, be it a chocolate bar or package of Sour Punch Straws, is distracting and unnecessary throughout the school and the act is plentiful throughout White Station.

“A couple kids have tried to sell candy bars during my class…[Teachers are] not equipped to deal with you guys selling things to each other, and it just it presents too many problems and not enough benefits. In fact it doesn’t really benefit [teachers] in any way if you guys have cheetos or candy bars to eat,” Rakestraw said.

Smith and Rakestraw both agreed and disagreed on why the policy was in place.

“Probably so you don’t like poison folks… there’s probably like allergies that they have to abide by,” Smith said.

Rakestraw agreed, while Smith had another guess towards why the policy existed.

“They’re mad they’re not making some of the profit,” Smith said.

Rakestraw disagreed.

“I’m definitely not mad that my income comes less than fifty cents at a time, I’m definitely not mad that I don’t have to walk around and approach strangers and try to sell them goods…We don’t see the kids selling chips in the hall and get jealous and be like ‘Man, there’s a guy who’s got it made,’” Rakestraw said.

Snack selling is there, out in the open, for anyone to see- it goes on at White Station.

“Maybe enforcement of the policy should be a little more uniform,”  Rakestraw said.

So, why isn’t it? Why isn’t the policy enforced equally throughout the school? Why aren’t chip sellers cracked down on?

Rakestraw had some thoughts.

“If the administration were to really crack down on something like that, and like suspensions go up, well then the Board of Education, all they see is numbers, and they’re like ‘Woah woah woah, why are your suspensions going up? You need to get your suspensions under control; you need to find alternate ways to fix this,’” Rakestraw said.

So how large of a problem is selling snacks? Should the school specifically crack down on snack selling right now? Where does illicit snack selling list on the school’s priorities?

“Probably more of a problem than the dress code, more of a problem than cell phones or whatever, but a problem that we need to work to stop,” Rakestraw said.

Whether or not the administration cracks down on it, snack selling on campus is a problem with many adverse effects.

The name Bobby Smith has replaced the name of a student who wished to remain anonymous.