Brockton High staff is hurt as students fought
A Brockton High School staff member was injured Monday during what officials called a “physical altercation between students” at the troubled school, where discipline issues and violence recently led four School Committee members to request the National Guard come to help restore order.
The staff member was evaluated by a nurse and sent home for the day, school officials said.
Monday’s fight is the latest in a series of violent incidents at the school, the largest high school in Massachusetts with nearly 3,600 students, which has been facing critical staffing shortages amid a $14 million school budget deficit.
The students involved will face discipline in accordance with district policy and procedures, a Brockton Public Schools spokesperson said.
Brockton School Police are working closely with the school’s administration on the matter, a Brockton Police Department spokesperson said. Officials did not release the names of the staff member or students involved or any further details.
The turmoil at Brockton High has been brewing for months, with fights breaking out as many as three or four times a week and making headlines nationwide.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. Last week, the Brockton School Committee held a special meeting regarding school safety.
The district, facing back-toback multimillion-dollar budget deficits, was forced to cut jobs, 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 Boston Globe there are too few adults to supervise them. Students are also recovering from learning disruptions and isolation caused by the shuttering of schools amid the COVID-19 pandemic, a confluence of factors experts say has contributed to ongoing behavioral issues.
Brockton High appears to be doubling down on discipline. The school will soon roll out a controversial new cellphone policy, requiring students to secure their phones in Yondr pouches at the beginning of the day. The pouches are used in dozens of schools across the state.
The school’s new principal, Kevin McCaskill, outlined at a recent School Committee meeting his plans for bringing stability to the campus, including resuming in-house suspensions, hiring six safety and security specialists, and more strictly enforcing existing rules around cellphones, drug use, weapons, and violence.