Students at one of the Dekalb County public schools recorded a short documentary to prove their high school needs repairs.
The eight-minute video with background music and captions of key quotes features several Druid Hills High School students documenting inhumane conditions in the classrooms, bathrooms, and hallways.
At the beginning of the video, a high school senior student explains how human waste flows up from the ground in an area where he and his friends eat lunch.
“We eat outside here every day, and it becomes a problem because you can smell what human waste smells like while we’re trying to eat our lunch,” he said.
In several building areas, plaster is falling off the walls, and water is dripping around outlets in the area. One student says one of their computer labs endured “years and years and years of water damage without anything getting fixed.”
A printed sign in the lab was taped to a pole that said, “Do not touch the pole! Do not touch the outlets on the pole!”
Warning students and staff that they could get electrocuted if they touched the pole.
Another student demonstrates how one of the holes in the ceiling is so large that he could fit his entire hand through it.
Harley Martz, a sophomore and one of the students who produced the video, told the Associated Press that a video was much more “impactful” than verbally telling someone about the conditions in the school.
“You can tell someone about the conditions, but when you visually see it, it’s a lot more impactful,” she explained. “Some of the things we pointed out in the video are very undeniable.”
Montrice Berry, a junior student at Druid Hills, walked through the J.R.O.T.C. area where trash cans are placed to collect excess water leaks from the ceiling.
“As you walk through the school now, you can smell the mold, and it’s kind of really nasty,” she says in the video. “So I tend to walk outside just so I can avoid the smell.”
After the video came out, “every time I go walking the halls, people are like ‘I’m so proud of you for speaking up,’” Berry said.
The video has amassed more than 27,000 views since it was posted on YouTube this month. A few parents in the suburban area just east of Atlanta were outraged and demanded repairs be made to the school. It was produced after the Dekalb County School Board decided to remove Druid Hills from the list of immediate renovations in February, Associated Press reported.
The documentary received praise from other students.
“I walked into my first period, and my fellow students were applauding,” Martz said.
The Dekalb County School Board will consider a resolution “to modernize Druid Hills High School,” the meeting agenda stated. According to historical accounts from the school district, the school has been in operation since the 1920s, marking it as one of the oldest in Georgia.
Film crews used it as the backdrop for several scenes in the 2000 film “Remember the Titans.”
There is a board meeting on Monday, but it is unclear what topics will be discussed.
Superintendent Cheryl Watson-Harris stated in an April 13 letter to community members in the district that she has known about the building’s need for repairs.
“Many areas of concern throughout the building that we have long known about and have been working to address in meaningful ways,” she wrote.
“As always, we are grateful for the advocacy of these students for themselves and future generations of learners.”
The school district and board “remain fully committed to ensuring that all scholars are in positive learning environments,” she wrote, adding that she expects the board’s next steps will be to “move forward with renovations at the school, including addressing immediate needs.”
However, students are waiting to see the improvements to their school.
“So far, I feel like they’re just talking,” Berry said. “I don’t really see a change so far. No one has really done anything.”
