By: Matthew Du; Odor Analyst and Traumatized Witness

On a sunny Friday afternoon at approximately 12:15 pm on February 28th, a random disgusting odor filled Room 308 and prompted an evacuation for Molly Kovacs’s Algebra 1 class. The smell was unbearable as the class had to leave. 

At approximately 12:15 pm, we were using our Chromebooks to fill out a seating survey and complete our DeltaMath math classwork. Then, out of nowhere, we hear a group of boys sitting in the back of the room screaming and hollering “EWWW!” They all grabbed their shirts and covered their noses because of the stench. A few of the boys went to the hallway to investigate where this mysterious smell was coming from while the other boys rushed to the front of the classroom and away from the awful smell. 

Then, Kovacs walked over to the door and immediately got a whiff of the sickening smell, quickly pulling up her shirt to cover up her nose, too. She sprinted to the windows and right away opened them to air out the ugly odor. 

Minutes later, the putrid odor filled the atmosphere and dispersed across the classroom where every student could smell it. It smelled like rancid rotten cheese or a porta potty on a hot summer day. We don’t know where the odor came from, but it was some sort of aerosol spray—whether it was perfume or fart spray remains a mystery. One of my classmates felt nauseous before he vomited into the trash can because the smell was so sickening. 

Kovacs prompted an evacuation as the smell was overpowering and suffocating. We all left the classroom and went to the lunch tables outside of the math hall. As we were leaving the classroom, the odor intensified, becoming even stronger than inside the classroom. 

Kovacs described the incident as we evacuated: “Our nose got assaulted.” 

One of the campus safety specialists, John Daquioag, arrived at math hall and immediately called the office and notified administration. After a couple of minutes, every Mills administrator arrived on scene of the incident one by one like cops and detectives responding to a crime scene. Principal Pamela Duszynski, Assistant Principal Jonathan White, and front office staff Alana Tipton, along with the campus safety specialist team, all came to math hall to investigate the smell. 

After another couple of minutes, Daquioag, motioned for us to go inside the cafeteria. After our class gathered in the cafeteria, Duszynski and White handed us incident report forms to fill out. The students had to write their witness statements of the incident of what they saw, heard, and noticed. 

Duszynski chatted with us and explained how this was a serious incident and they were going to do an investigation of where that smell came from and who sprayed it. 

Duszynski said, “This is a serious incident as this disrupts class time. It disrupts your learning. It was unfortunate that this happened and I want you guys to fill out those forms writing what you saw and heard. I know your teacher, Ms. Kovacs is very disappointed.” 

After about 5 to 10 minutes of filling forms, the Mills admin team had deemed the classroom safe and free from the nasty odor and everyone could return back into the classroom. One of the Mills admin team had actually passed out due to the strong odor. As we were walking back to the classroom, I heard in the background one of my classmates noted, “It still smells kind of musty in here.”  

Freshmen Jonathan Liu (9) and Carison Chiu (9) both described the smell as “rotten cheese.”  

Another freshman Nicolas Carrozzi (9) describes the smell as “the smell of a fridge after a Chipotle bowl has been left in for weeks.” 

Junior Olivia Pan (11), who was in her AP Statistics class across the room, describes the smell as “if a dead fish had a baby in the sewers.” 

She recalls Nils Headley, their AP stats teacher closing the door and throwing a blanket underneath the door to cover up the crack before turning on all the fans. 

I asked Kovacs to recall what it smelled like, and she mentioned that “it almost smelled like old cheese and like sweaty socks or something. At first I thought, maybe somebody passed gas or maybe somebody accidentally opened up like an old lunch bag or something happened. I was just kind of expecting it to pass.” 

I asked Duszynski to comment about the incident and she said in a statement, “I was concerned about what happened. I worried that it was a stink bomb of some sort that was let off in class and clearly that’s an interruption to learning and to the classrooms.” 

Duszynski and her team did a thorough investigation into this matter, they were unable to determine the cause of the incident and the source of where the odor came from. She speculates that someone walked in the hallway and sprayed something into the classroom. However, she did specify that looking at the security footage, she was able toidentify an unnamed individual who was in the area before it happened. 

The revolting smell wreaked havoc on that day and everyone has made a full recovery while some have PTSD from the odor.