At Dobbins High School, ‘a chaotic, unsafe environment.’ What is the district doing to help?

Dobbins High School has 12 career and technical programs, a proud history, and an imposing building that occupies an entire block of Lehigh Avenue in North Philadelphia.

This year, it’s also got a school culture and safety problem, multiple staff and students say, with students walking the halls during class time, outsiders entering the building, frequent fights — and multiple staff assaults — to date. Despite appeals for help from the district, the problems have continued.

“It’s a very bad recipe,” one staffer said. “It’s a chaotic, unsafe environment.”

The reasons for the dysfunction are myriad: a city beset by gun violence and the lingering effects of a pandemic, a lack of resources and staff, a number of key jobs unfilled, a huge building that can be unwieldy to manage, and a student body whose needs seem especially great this year. But they’re compounded, those inside say, by a lack of meaningful help from administrators.

Almost a dozen staffers, parents, and students came forward to discuss the climate at Dobbins with The Inquirer; most declined to be publicly identified for fear of reprisal. They all said that Dobbins, a school of nearly 1,100 students, is struggling.

Philadelphia School District said the principal and superintendent responsible for Dobbins were unavailable for comment by The Inquirer’s deadline.

But in a statement, district spokesperson Marissa Orbanek said that “similar to schools throughout the country, the district is aware of the rising levels of misbehavior and violence that is impacting students’ education — including recent incidents at Dobbins. We are working with schools, like Dobbins, to implement proactive measures that improve school climate, create a stronger sense of community and ensure safety and security for students and staff.”

Among the measures, Orbanek said, were reevaluating school climate strategies; bringing new climate staff on board; adding evidence-based violence prevention programming, a youth court and additional staff-training opportunities; and working on student engagement.

But staffers in the building say they have not yet seen practical evidence of help. Central to the chaos, they say, is a lack of control over who’s in the building.

» READ MORE: A look inside a challenging, complicated year at one Philly elementary school.

Dobbins occupies an eight-story building, and students are required to swipe in for entry, passing through metal detectors with staff supervision. But once inside, students can and do let others in from other doors where no employees are stationed because there’s not enough people to cover them.

“There are constantly people here who do not belong in the building,” the staffer said. There have been Tasers and gun clips brought in, another staffer said. At one point, administrators told teachers to take pictures of unauthorized people in the hallways or classes, but that stopped once students who were photographed began to assault staff, they say.

The first staffer said Dobbins “has just become the place to get lit. The hallways smell like weed constantly.”

A case in point: Last week a climate staffer was assaulted after attempting to clear a bathroom of students who gathered to smoke marijuana, a source with firsthand knowledge of the incident said. A student attacked the staffer, taking them down at the knees. The staffer was flipped over, hitting their head and one side of their body, requiring hospital treatment.

The student was reprimanded and back at school that same week, staff said.

“It’s been impossible to expel students,” a second staffer said. “Even after a student has assaulted multiple staff or students, or broken things in the building, they’re just here, and that sends a message.”

It’s especially frustrating given Dobbins’ historical place as one of the city’s strongest career and technical schools, a place with a cohesive culture, faculty committed to student success, and programs — such as barbering, property management, and network technology — that can equip young people for strong futures.

“This place is really special,” said a third staffer. “We have people that genuinely want to be here and think our kids are just magical.”

But staff vacancies, endemic to schools around the country and especially problematic in a number of urban districts, allow climate problems to snowball, the second staffer said.

Because Dobbins has block scheduling, a student with two long-term substitutes — an entirely possible circumstance given current open teaching jobs, according to people inside the school — might have three hours of class time with very little structure.

“The vacancies that we have lead to classrooms that are basically unmanned, or have long-term subs that don’t have classroom management and culture skills, and that spills into the hallway,” the third staffer said. “You get kids who are bored out of their minds, and they’re teenagers, and they do things they shouldn’t.”

Every staffer, parent, and student who talked to The Inquirer said the school is populated by a majority of young people who want to be at Dobbins to do well, but say that a small percentage of students are wreaking havoc for everyone. (Dobbins, which admits students from around the city, used to have admissions requirements; now, it’s open to any Philadelphia student who applies, but staff say they do not have adequate support to help the neediest students.)

“Most of our students are scared,” the third staffer said. “Our students should be able to focus on their studies, on their shops, and we’re going to lose good students for safety transfer. Even the kids that are the problem, I’ve spoken to them, they’re terrified, too. They’re worried about getting jumped. The only way is to be angry and violent, because they’re scared.”

A fourth staffer, another veteran of city schools, said Dobbins at the moment “feels unsafe. It’s just rough. I want to give all respect to everyone that’s trying to do their best, but at the moment, we’re losing the battle with the kids.”

Antoine Little’s daughter is a freshman at Dobbins. Three weeks ago, he got a call that she had been attacked. Little rushed to the school to learn that his daughter had also been involved in a fight in the lunchroom. (She has received no discipline, Little said, and there’s been no follow-up to his daughter reporting a purse and bookbag were stolen from her on different days, too.)

“I’ve got to be honest, it was like mayhem,” Little said of the school that day he visited. “There were children everywhere.”

Little said there were at least four fights the day he went to Dobbins. Administrators told him about a lack of staff, but he said he worries about a lack of effective practices at the school, too.

“They want everyone to have 95% attendance, they don’t want children suspended, so there are no consequences. There’s no consequences for cutting class. I’m concerned for the safety of the students, for the safety of the staff. The right systems are not being put in place for our children to succeed.”

Little said he and his wife thought about removing their daughter from Dobbins, but for now, he’s vowed to advocate for improvements at the school.

Kayla Stanton, a Dobbins junior, loves her school. But conditions this year have her feeling frustrated. A move to have all students lock their cell phones in Yondr pouches means young people could be waiting outside the building for 30 minutes every day, which delays learning.

Generally, this year “is really draining,” said Stanton, 16. She feels personally supported by her teachers but unsure about larger school issues. “There’s no communication, kids are angry and getting in more fights, and the stuff the school is doing is not working. I wish we could all sit down and figure it out together.”