I was referring to my experience during the last lock down drill we had.
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Today I provide you with the worst fire drill in my schools history (or at least that is what school personnel are calling it.)
For starters, I would like to clarify I was not at the school at the time of the drill, the Theatre and Choir classes had taken a field trip to watch a local production, and myself being in theatre, I was on this trip.
I however was able to talk with siblings, trustworthy friends, and school administrators in regards to the drills.
I must first mention that all staff members are notified of drillls, the school safety committee (including staff, school police, and school fire safety) have a meeting to plan drills at the start of each year.
Each year the school is required to do one drill per each lunch period.
Today’s drill was scheduled for 12:00 PM MST (6th Grade Lunch).
The first announcement over the Dukane PA system was made at 12:10 PM (Drills have started late before due to things happening in the school office.)
The announcement stated something along the lines of “Attention students, please report…”
The announcement was overridden by the bell, so students did not hear the rest of the announcement (No PA speaker is located near the office so they had no clue the PA had cut off.)
At this time, school staff started directing 6th grade students down to the field, while this is happening, certain 7th and 8th grade classes are self evacuating (keep in mind the system has not been activated yet). Around 30 seconds later, the system was activated, this is where the chaos starts.
For starters, classes were already in the hall, causing general congestion for people exiting adjecent rooms, certain classes were also evacuating using incorrect routes, meaning there was about 7 classes attempting to evacuate out of 1 set of double doors (keep in mind these are 30 kid classes).
While this is happening, students who were already on the field continue to run around the field, not taking notice to the outdoor bells sounding, and acting like nothing is happening, other students where lining up in incorrect lines, causing multiple reports of missing students (Yellow Cards).
Once the hallways cleared, a group of students reentered the building, since these students had been reported missing, administrators were attempting to find them, when administrators did find them, they were walking the hallways singing “Happy Birthday” (Keep in mind the System is still activated and the hallways are clear at this moment, besides some of the last classes exiting on the other side of the school).
By the time everyone was accounted for before, the drill had ran about 6 minutes (we have a 2-3 minute average).
Students were also noisy during the drill, causing them to miss vital instructions from teachers.
I would not be surprised if the district makes us redo the drill, and numerous administrators said that in their 10 to 20 years at the school, this was the worst fire drill they had ever seen.
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This is why the drill should’ve been unannounced to students and staff from the getgo. Honestly an unannounced drill would’ve worked better.
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I would also advise the principal to make sure students are aware of their expectations to remain silent during a fire drill and to have teachers enforcing a no talking rule during drills.
This was an issue in my High School and even when I brought it up to my teachers, administration and the district they didn’t even care.
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I agree, especially since classes should have remained in class before the alarm activated. For example, last year when they did a drill similar, a vague reminder was made that morning about the proper drill procedures, and very few students picked up the fact a drill would happen later.
I have discussed with the administration, and our School Police/Safety department and they have said they are working on it, I suppose next month we will find out.
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Good to know. Hopefully this gets resolved for the next drill.
By the way, has your school done any Lockdown or Lockout Drills?
Yes, our school District does Conduct Lockdown Drills. (We are in the same District, Different Schools.)
Yes, my school has completed one lockdown drill, this one was a “secure lockdown”, where the class is locked, but instruction continues (such as if police activity is down the road). Within the next few months we will have a hard lockdown.
So far we’ve had 3 fire drills, the first on September 14th, then Oct 10th, and finally Nov 10th. We will be having what we call an “ALICE” drill on Nov 29th. It is similar to a lockdown but with extra precautions upon what to do if an active shooter is around.
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I had the 4th official Fire Drill during Art class at school today.
If this continues your next step may have to be to have the Superintendent and Local Fire Department involved. Hoping to see this resolved.
Indeed. I have connections with some firefighters and inspectors with the fire department, so I will ensure that this is corrected appropriately.
So basically it was a major train wreck.
That is a dumb config. I know that Telecenter systems have the bells at a lower priority than the paging. Even if you are doing a zone/room page, it stops the bell on older systems, or delays the bell until you hang up on the newer U systems.
At least you have outdoor NAs. My building doesn’t have any outdoor NAs that are connected as far as I am aware, which is strange because most other schools in my district have outdoor NAs, at least one, and usually it is near the main entrance.
I have herd of a Alice Drill for active shooter
I totally agree with this, but our district uses Dukane/Carehawk systems. Even at my high school, same thing always happens during announcements. Bell cuts off the PA. I kinda wish we had a Telecenter system…
My district used to use Dukane, but I think that was before my time in the district (2011-now)
Hopefully this will be fixed with Bond, since they are redoing a majority of the intercom systems. Who knows if that will be in our time however.
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No, that is very true. It could also depend on what schools the District prioritizes first, too. (It looks like its going high schools first, so it may be a bit…)
My district had this issue with their Dukane (later Carehawk) systems. Staff would be mid-announcement and the bell would go off. One thing they did at my high school was play music instead of a 2 minute warning bell. Announcements would override that without issue. I assume there’s some priority setting in that config somewhere, but I’ve seen the config software for the Carehawk systems… It’s pretty complicated.
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