Since the 2021 school year has started, the Administration and teachers have tried as hard as possible to get the school’s environment back the best they can. This has caused a number of things to return, from Homecoming and Spirit Week to normal drills. These drills include preparation for lockdowns, tornadoes, and fires. However, in the past couple of months, something has shown to be slightly off about the fire drills.
August and September had started normal, with only the monthly drills that went off within the school and caused students and teachers to evacuate from the campus. However, October is where something changed within the system.
In this timeframe, fire drills seemed to be happening multiple times within a month with no heads up to those on campus- illustrating them not to be the typical monthly drill. While nothing seemed to be wrong or at danger, the fire alarm continued to go off over 4 times in the month of October. One member of Administration spoke up about the cause of this repeated issue.
“There was a bubble within the system that caused it to ‘detect’ a fire that wasn’t there. We had to do work on it, and eventually the alarm stopped going off,” said Assistant Principal Dennis Derflinger.
This blip was not caused by anything but happens once in a while on its own. While the fire alarm has portrayed accurate in the past for the school, no system can be shown to be fully perfect in all ways.
For past years and their fire alarms, the procedure has been to meet up with Homeroom classes- despite the class period that students are in. But for this year, this has changed- allowing for slight confusion when students are allowed to evacuate like normal with the class they are in.
For one of the false fire drills, the alarm went off between classes when students were moving to their next. This allowed for confusion about what direction students should have gone to, which may call for new procedures and preparation when a situation like this occurs. This being only one issue set off by the drills, students have begun to speak out on the issue.
“I think having these drills was a little annoying for a lot of people,” said Junior Stirling Smith, “for one of them I was in the middle of taking a test and it kind of messed me up, but I know it wasn’t anyone’s fault.”
Students like Smith and faculty members seem to be thankful for the alarm that is finally fixed, and everyone is safe. Now, they can continue with their work at peace without worrying about the alarm disrupting their day.
Ava Combs // Editor in Chief
