Carol Kaliff / Hearst Connecticut Media

Photo via newstimes

Since school came back in session full-time in 2021, the violence in Danbury High School has been frequent and quite noticeable, especially for the newer kids moving up into the school. It’s no secret that DHS is the largest high school in CT with around 3,600 students. Principal Dan Donovan compares it to his first year when he started with around 2,800 students. Now DHS has grown by hundreds of students.

A significant contributor to the concern is the threats the school has faced. Principal Dan Donovan describes the most recent threat. “If I take you through the timeline of this last one that comes out it never comes directly to the school where does it go? Snapchat, right? Our students generally do an awesome job of sending it to me. I got flooded with emails, I think I got the first one at like 9:40 pm so when the police investigated it was made on Snapchat at 9:30 so 10 minutes later I had it … .We were able to solve it by about 11:40 at night.” This incident is only the latest of many and one of the less serious ones. 

A memorable scare happened during the 2021-2022 school year. A student lit firecrackers in the D3 bathrooms. When freshman Chloe Djilani walked past C building to go to class with her sibling Lee that day, they “absolutely thought the school was getting shot up. Lee and I grabbed each other and we ran back out the main entrance. And then… briefly ducked behind some staff cars before running all the way up the hill and ducking behind the ‘Welcome To DHS’ sign, very ironically. And that’s where we stayed until we found out that it was not a shooting.” Djilani recalled that throughout that 21-22 school year, “there were threats of bombings and threats of shooting. And we went on soft lockdown. Nothing quite so active or eventful.” When asked if she felt safe at school she stated that she “never had, never will.” 

During that school year, everyone’s first year being back from COVID-19 and 1,100 student’s first time in DHS, it sparked fear that has stayed with them to the present day. Mr. Williams, a teacher of 8 years here and a former student, shared his experience outside his classroom in D372 before class. “Kids running at me is the first thing I remember. Which isn’t abnormal, there are kids running in the hallway all the time but it was like a sea of kids. Absolutely terrified… I grabbed as many kids as I could in the hallway and was yelling at them to get into my room. I gave that about 20-30 seconds…I went into my own personal lockdown thing.”  

Another very noticeable feature of DHS is the fights. Fights have been fairly commonplace not just in DHS’ recent years. There have been fights ranging from the hallways to the lunch room and bathrooms. A particularly memorable and violent one happened last year when a student threw a fellow student into the glass of the D3 office. Other students occasionally get involved or attempt to break up the fights, and many times teachers will as well. Williams recalled, “I have personally broken up a bunch of fights since being a teacher at Danbury High School…We are not expected to get involved in the violence, it’s not our job. It’s difficult though because you see two children (they’re children, we have to remember this) wailing on each other, throwing punches at each other, it’s hard not to step in and try to stop that.” He later describes how they are strongly discouraged from putting themselves in harm’s way. 

Many teachers still chose to help instead of waiting up to a few minutes for a safety advocate to get through the crowds of yelling and filming students to stop the fighters. A more recent example of the types of student fighting happened while holding a press conference with the Principal in the Journalism classroom, D466 on September 27th at around noon. The Journalism teacher, Mrs. Gentile, describes that the students were “all sitting in a circle and trying to listen to Mr. Donovan, and we could just hear two people arguing and it just kept getting louder and louder and more disruptive. So I stepped out and tried to check in with them. They were just upset with each other, I’m not sure about what. And then we got them to sort of split off. One stormed away and then…the level 4 office Mr. Foot stepped out and checked in with the girls and I think he got it figured out.” 

The real concern in DHS is if the violence is getting worse. In such a big school with such a large population, it is easy to forget what the staff is doing behind the scenes to keep DHS safe. According to both Williams and Donovan, the violence had not gotten worse in the years that they’ve been here, it has only changed with the times. Williams comments, “I think the thing that’s definitely changed the most since I was in high school is we didn’t really have fights in the middle of the hallway. They’re becoming more public and more widespread. So as a student, I would see fights in the cafeteria and I would see fights in the parking lot but that was pretty much it.” Fights in recent years have happened all over the school and in front of everyone who happened to be around. Williams does believe the violence levels will fall once the academy starts taking students to the other building. He believes it will allow the teachers to form closer relationships with the students. “If I have a relationship with you and I see something about to go down and I tell you to cut it out, more than likely you stop.” 

Regarding threats to the school, Donovan is well-educated and prepared for handling situations. A good example of this is the previously mentioned threat on the school through Snapchat. He has a great network of students and parents who come across threats right away and make him aware of them. From there, he gathers information and contacts the police, who then work on contacting Snapchat and tracing the threat back to the person who made it. The Danbury Police officers are always on the property during the morning and afternoon hours. DHS has Safety Advocates stationed at different points around the building and new cameras around the school. Every threat is very carefully evaluated by Donovan and the officers he works with to make certain the offender is caught and the threat is solved. They use the school’s practiced drills to quickly evacuate students or shelter them appropriately. 

Overall, the violence in the school is expected to drop significantly once the new academies start next year. They will have more resources to help and a better staff-to-student ratio. Violence, like everything, has changed over the years, but the staff have changed with it, and are well prepared for anything thrown their way in the coming years. With the new changes next year, DHS should see larger improvements and is striving to be a safer place for the thousands who attend every day to learn, teach, and supervise.