BROCKTON — Isabela Katzki feels uneasy navigating the halls between classes at Brockton High School, where fights break out as many as three or four times a week, drawing mobs of students, running full-sprint, eager to film the brawls on their cellphones. Katzki, 15, a sophomore, is tired of the mayhem, and so are her parents, who, she said, are planning to homeschool her for her junior and senior years.
She’ll miss her friends from Brockton High’s award-winning theater program, and she still plans to audition for the spring musical. But otherwise, Katzki has had her fill of the violence.
“Our school’s so overpopulated and there’s just not enough resources for all the students to get what they need,” she said. “And even the resources that we do have aren’t good enough.”
Katzki’s high school — the largest in the state with almost 3,600 students — has been making headlines across the country for all the wrong reasons: At a recent School Committee meeting, multiple teachers described frequent student fights and expressed concern for their safety. On the last Friday before February break, four School Committee members called for the National Guard to be deployed to the school to help stamp out campus violence. Governor Maura Healey has said she has no plans to send in the National Guard. However, the state’s education department will fund a campus safety audit. On Tuesday, the Brockton School Committee will hold a special meeting regarding school safety.
The turmoil at Brockton High School has been brewing for months. The district, facing back-to-back multimillion-dollar budget deficits, was forced to cut staff, leaving classrooms and hallways understaffed. High teacher absences and a shortage of substitutes have left hundreds of students stranded for hours in the cafeteria instead of being in class.
Multiple students told the Globe there are too few adults to supervise them. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, schools were shuttered, students’ learning was disrupted and many of them were isolated, a confluence of factors that experts say contributed to ongoing behavioral issues.
The school district and city police department have not responded to requests from the Globe for the number of suspensions, arrests, or emergency calls this year at the school, which could shed light on the full extent of disruptions. However, according to state data, 19 percent of Brockton High students were suspended, either in-school, or out, last school year, compared with just under 4 percent statewide
Social justice advocates, education experts, and some students are calling on the district to beef up staff, particularly counselors and other mental health professionals, and to put in place experts trained in substance abuse, mental health, and peer-to-peer conflict.
“We need to be more resourceful with the money that we are getting and put it into actually getting teachers,” said 15-year-old Emma Gomes, a sophomore.
Twice this school year, nearly all of Gomes’ teachers were absent, leaving her schedule almost completely empty and with nothing to do because she’d already completed previously assigned work. The teacher shortage is not only affecting students’ behavior she said, but the quality of their education.
“I’m not getting the full potential of education that I want,” Gomes said.
Instead, Brockton High appears to be doubling down on discipline. The school will soon roll out a new controversial cellphone policy, requiring students to secure their phones in Yondr pouches at the beginning of the day. The pouches, used in dozens of schools across the state, have a magnetic locking system that can only be unsealed with a special device. The high school’s new principal, Kevin McCaskill, recently outlined his plans at a School Committee meeting for instilling stability, including resuming in-house suspensions, hiring six safety and security specialists, and more strictly enforcing existing rules around cellphones, drug use, weapons, and violence.
Addison Shaw, 16, said the recent news reports don’t reflect many of her classmates who participate in clubs and sports, take honors and Advanced Placement courses, and are committed to getting good grades. A varsity cheerleader, Shaw said she chose to attend Brockton High because of the myriad opportunities available. Last spring, she sang and danced in the high school’s production of “Mamma Mia!” This summer, she’ll travel to Europe with other members of the choral program to perform in five different countries.
“The chaos that people are focusing on is only about, I would say, 10 percent of the students and the other 90 percent are in honors classes, going to class, getting good grades, involved in sports and stuff like that,” she said. “This stuff that’s highlighted — the bad stuff that’s happening — is only happening when there are not adults present.”
Gomes, the sophomore, said Brockton High’s reputation doesn’t align with her personal experience, either, as a three-sport varsity athlete and AP student.
“It is so easy to stay away from all the distractions and to not get caught up in the chaos at Brockton High,” Gomes said. “If you go in and you do that, you’ll be perfectly fine.”
Katzki also does her best to steer clear from troublemakers. But she’s worried trouble will find her: A few weeks ago, a classmate bumped into her in the hallway and tried to goad her into a fistfight. Katzki bit her tongue and scurried past her, narrowly avoiding a scuffle.
“It’s hard because I have to keep my mouth shut, keep my head down, be careful about what I say and who I talk to because there are people who will fight me,” she said. “And that’s kind of how it goes for lots of people. … It’s very much like, keep quiet, be careful.”
As far as she knows, most of the fights are caused by typical teen drama, Katzki said: Two-faced gossip, backstabbing hook-ups, nasty social media posts. What’s almost worse than the fights, however, are the unruly crowds they attract, so large that Katzki rarely catches a glimpse of the skirmishes herself.
“It’s crazy that you just see kids with their phones out and you know there’s a fight somewhere happening,” she said. “People have gotten hurt like really bad in the rush to see what’s happening.”
Brockton High is a diverse school, where roughly 81 percent of the students are Black or Latino, and nearly 70 percent are low-income, according to state data. Many in the community have rallied around them. Dozens of activists, residents, and parents gathered at the entrance of the high school Monday morning, waving homemade signs displaying their “Boxer” pride as students and teachers arrived on campus following a weeklong break.
As he made his way to school Monday morning, Jeffrey Miz, a sophomore, said he likes his classes and teachers. But Miz said fights are commonplace, and he sees students vaping — both tobacco and marijuana — every day in the bathrooms.
”It’s always there,” he said. “I try to ignore it.”
Kenza Odigene, a freshman, said Brockton High is a “great school.” Although she loves her math and biology classes, she doesn’t always feel completely safe.
Eliana Gonçalves, another freshman who moved to Brockton this fall from Cape Verde, said she is frustrated with her classmates’ misbehavior.
”I like the school,” Gonçalves said, particularly her English class. ”But I don’t like the fights.”
Deanna Pan can be reached at deanna.pan@globe.com. Follow her @DDpan. Christopher Huffaker can be reached at christopher.huffaker@globe.com. Follow him @huffakingit.