What happened for Nebreda that morning would come to change her life forever. And incidents like Nebreda's, though varying in severity, are not uncommon at ASL.

In a poll of 180 high school students, almost 32 percent stated that they were victims of sexual harassment -- of those, nine percent said they have been harassed while on school grounds.

Scarlett* ('16), based off of her previous experiences, defines sexual harassment as "physical contact, or even by words, or pressure." The legal definition doesn't stray very far from Scarlett's own definition: In a pamphlet distributed by the Citizens Advice Bureau, a U.K. charity, sexual harassment has a series of definitions, ranging from "unwelcome comments of a sexual nature" and "unnecessary touching or unwanted physical contact" to "displaying offensive material, such as posters."

One of the more important things to note about sexual harassment definitions, though, is that the definitions act more as guidelines: Whether it's sexual harassment or not is decided by the victim.

Cody's* ('14) perception of sexual harassment differs greatly from Scarlett's. "I don't think sexual harassment is an issue at ASL; I can't say there's not a sense of inequality, but I feel that boys are very respectful towards girls," he said. "In a party environment, a guy may make an unwelcome advance to a girl but I think the girl can stop it. In our environment it's not very aggressive. It would just make the girl uncomfortable rather than threatened or unsafe. If it's persistent I would call it harassment."

But for Scarlett and other girls in the school community, sexual harassment is an all too common issue. "I know there's been cases where people were sending [sexually provocative] pictures, and I think that's really prevalent here. And I think that people have become very careless with it, and I think that there's a lot of pressure from guys on girls to do that [sending partly or completely nude photos to each other]," she said.

Scarlett distinguishes this trend as being more prevalent between younger girls and older guys. "I think that a lot of girls when they first enter high school have low self-esteem and they sort of want to build that up, and I think that the older kids think that they can take advantage of that and sometimes it can become dangerous, because it's not exactly for a good purpose," she said.

And although Cody maintains that sexual harassment is not a major issue within the school community, Cody acknowledges the trend himself. "It sounds bad but guys may be just looking for new girls, when new girls come into the high school and they start maturing physically they will become attractive to those guys, so that could explain that [older guys with younger girls]. I can't explain why it's not senior girls to lowerclassmen boys, maybe the girls have better self-control than the boys," he said.

Cody maintains that girls are able to avoid the problems. "When a new or younger girl comes into the school its not like she's an object, she's still a person, it's not like she doesn't have a say in who she chooses, should she choose anyone," he said.

Disagreeing with Cody, Scarlett suggests that girls do not truly have control over their sexual interactions. "I had a friend who had a relationship with a senior and she was -- it was very nice -- and then it got to a point where it was sort of based on pressure. I think it can lead to that [sexual harassment]," she explained.

Scarlett was able to mention further instances -- some starting as early as the seventh grade -- of peers who had been the victim of the sexual harassment, leading her to think ASL has a "sexual harassment culture."

Regarding sexual harassment, the issue of unsafe sexual behavior in the presence of alcohol has also come up.

Zara Mandel ('16) thinks that parties create an unsafe sexual environment. "Let's not be naive, people drink at parties, and someone will come on to them and say, 'Do you want to get out of here' and they'll just be like '[OK], whatever.' But if you're drunk, you shouldn't be able to make those types of decisions for yourself, because you're not in the right mindset."

Despite instances like this, not everyone believes that alcohol creates such a problem, regarding persons being taken advantage of sexually. "I wouldn't say guys take advantage of [girls under the influence of alcohol]. If a guy wants to get with a girl and he knows she's drunk and knows that she hates him but she's so incapacitated that she can't make that decision for herself, then that's bad. But I think the expression drunk words are sober thoughts [is applicable here]. If you'd do it when you're drunk you'll still do it when you're sober," Cody said.

For Nebreda, Scarlett, and High School Principal Jack Phillips, the solution to ASL's problem comes in many different ways but all with one clear purpose: Preventing sexual harassment from happening in the ASL community completely.

After suffering from instances of sexual harassment, Nebreda chose to confront her harasser head on. Nebreda struggled for months to find the person: She tried calling them multiple times, texting, going to the police -- she was no closer to finding the harasser until, a few months later, her and her friend made another plan to try to find out who he was. "[My friend and I] called [the harasser's number] from her phone and asked for his number, pretending to be someone else. Then the guy said 'hey, this is my name' and then we went on Facebook and we found out that the only mutual friend between this guy and me was [the harasser, and an ASL student]. My initial response to finding out was [intense]."

Nebreda, having recovered from her initial shock, was able to develop an approach to deal with the problem with those close to her. "I wanted to talk to him first face-to-face, making him confess and then go to [Dean of Students Joe] Chodl. If I just went straight to Chodl he could just lie. Because I know I have the confidence to go to him face-to-face and make him confess, I knew it would be much easier," she said.

Nebreda set up a meeting in a classroom the next morning with the person she believed to be the harasser. She planned to confront him regarding what he had done to her. "He came in and asked what it was about and I said 'Is there anything you have to say to me?' He said 'No, what are you talking about?' and I repeated, 'not by phone but to my face' and he said the same thing," Nebreda explained. "I said 'I know you're the person that sent those texts and I knew you sent it from your friend's phone, so you can either confess to me now or I'll go straight to the police because I have enough evidence."

Having realized he had been found out, the harasser confessed to Nebreda that it had indeed been him who sent the text messages.

The offense ascertained, Nebreda then brought the case to the school's disciplinary process. The behavioral consequences were decided and the harasser eventually withdrew from the school.

Nebreda has no sympathy for her abuser. "The reason he's not in school is because he'd make anyone else feel unsafe. It's not just because he did something bad, it's because I can't feel safe. What if he's in my English class? How am I supposed [to] work if I know someone who wants to rape, someone who want to hurt me, is in my class?" she said.

Nebreda does note, though, that she is not the reason the harasser was asked to leave the school. "It could have been any other girl, I just happened to be the victim," she said.

Instead of allowing this situation to knock her down, Nebreda has only grown stronger from this scarring experience. "I think its made me feel really strongly about a topic I never thought I'd feel strongly about. Its made me realize I have a role in helping other girls deal with things like this," she said.

While Nebreda chose to confront her harasser, and then chose to educate other girls, Phillips wants to seek a more preventative approach. "I think that there's some really important steps that need to be taken. I think that we're interested in evaluating our [grades] 9-12 educational program, because right now there's a lot that happens say, in [Health and Wellness Course]. It's great, it's high-powered stuff, but making sure that it is integrated and goes all the way through [grades] 9-12," he said. "I think it's looking at policies within the school and making sure that everybody recognizes what's acceptable and what's unacceptable. I think it also means multi-tiered responses. Recognizing that discipline should not be the only way we address this."

Phillips and Nebreda, though, both agree that tackling the problem early on and creating a safe environment is essential to prevent minor occurrences from developing into greater problems of sexual harassment. "We don't have rules about sexual harassment. If a senior boy texts a random sophomore girl asking her to come over or jokes around with her, that's sexual harassment. She'll think [the texts] are annoying but won't do anything about it and that's the problem," Nebreda said.

Nebreda felt that in her case if the problem hadn't been confronted head on, the harasser would never have learned the valuable lesson he did. "I don't think [the harasser] is a crazy rapist who was out to get me. He just messed up, he didn't realize it was that bad. He didn't think it was, no one would. I know a lot of people would be surprised he [withdrew from the school]. Yes he [did] because he threatened to rape a girl," she said.

Nebreda worries that if her harasser was not confronted, "[the harasser] thinks it's OK [and] he'll do it to another girl." But since the harasser was confronted by Nebreda, Nebreda believes his actions could be corrected and future instances prevented from ever occurring.

Scarlett does see a more positive route for victims of sexual harassment in the ASL community, "It's going [on] and I think that a lot of girls are afraid to speak up if something like that happens, and I don't think that anyone's really come out about it. There was a certain event recently just with it, and once one girl came up, a lot of other girls spoke up. It's getting better with girls talking about it."

Phillips also sees a path being available for students who are victims of sexual harassments. "I would say [the path is] through an adult. That can be your parent, that can be a counselor here on campus, that can be your dean, it can be a teacher, it can be the Dean of Students, it can be me. That's the path. Is getting an adult," he said. "It's important not to be condescending but we can't help if we don't know. And the second [thing] is that we have certain tools at our disposal, and experience in the building that we can point you in the right direction. And at the very least we can give you the message that it's not okay, and we're here to help."

For Nebreda, experiencing sexual harassment has changed the way she looks at the issue -- and her experience comes with a warning sign for others. "You never think of yourself as a victim of something and I still don't. You hear about these girls who are victims and I don't consider myself a victim, but I am," she said. "I want to make sure that I'm not trying to make [the harasser] this evil person, I'm trying to make him out as someone who didn't know what he was doing and [show] that this can happen to other boys in the High School, male and female, because girls can do this too. People should realize that bullying and sexual harassment is much more serious than it seems."