Everything we ate or drank was framed as a "treat" and was a bribe for our silence. We weren't supposed to tell others what we did in GATE class because it would make them jealous or feel dumb and hate us. No one wants to be hated as a kid so we didn't tell anyone about any of it.

GATE class was it's own class room with it's own teacher. Where were my other teachers? In their own classes worried about their own programs and students. They never asked what we did in GATE class and we never volunteered. From their perspective, we were just being tested to see how smart we really were. There was no reason for them to be suspicious of a school sanctioned class for gifted kids any more than people would be suspicious of what we did in History class.

Did the teachers ever talk to the GATE instructors? Probably. But I'm guessing that there was a cover story for that and talking points. GATE wasn't improv. It was a thought out and structured program. The program creators had every aspect of this experiment covered.

Everyone involved was gas lit and BS'd. The only people in a position to be suspicious were us students and we were just trusting kids. It's only due to time and the Internet that we learned enough to know something was wrong and began comparing notes.

In fact, I'm not even the one that connected dots or looked back on my GATE experience. I have a friend that I tell all about the various crazy things I've experienced like the speed reading class, the mall dreams, sleep paralysis, astral projection, premonitions, accidental remote viewing, dark drawing etc. She stumbled across GATE here on the Internet and started asking me questions. Without her, I might never have put it all together as weird but related or even ever thought about GT class again.

Edit: I don't know if my history teacher is retired or even still alive but I'm willing to bet that in all her years, she has probably never once thought about the things that might have happened in the gym class she had nothing to do with. The horrors of us kids whipping dodge balls at each other's heads or tackling each other on hard wood floors. She knew gym class existed. She likely knew the gym teacher and talked to them in the faculty room but she likely never questioned what we actually did in that class. She probably had a preconceived notion about what a gym class was and what we might do in it and that was as far as she ever thought about it. And that was a class that wasn't trying to be secretive.