How often should schools conduct fire drills?

How often should schools conduct fire drills?

  • Twice a month.
  • Once a month.
  • Once every two months.
  • Once every quarter. Four fire drills each school year.
  • Once each school year.
  • Other.
0 voters

How often do you think schools should conduct fire drills?

I think it’s good the way it is at once a month. It’s frequent enough that students will be familiar with how to evacuate from various classes, but not too frequent that it starts to become a disruption to learning.

The schools around here usually do 3 in the fall, 3 in the spring, as the snowy conditions prevent us from doing them in the winter months. The one year in high school, we only did 2 in the entire year.

Daily - the less time in the classroom, the better.

In all seriousness, I’d say once a month is good practice in elementary school, since the kids are young and the teacher is responsible for leading them out and taking attendance. By the time we’re in middle school we’ve all had enough practice evacuating ourselves from various locations.

As much as monthly fire drills are fun for us enthusiasts, Tunxis Community College actually created a “cry wolf” effect from conducting them once a month and stopped doing so over a decade ago. Semesterly fire drills came back very recently and I think that’s ideal for grown adults. On the flip side, if you don’t do them at all, you get comments from the GP like “I thought that was someone’s phone was vibrating”.

[quote="Simplex 2903-9101" post_id=87475 time=1597093650 user_id=3578] you get comments from the GP like "I thought that was someone's phone was vibrating".

[/quote]

How could someone reasonably think that this, for instance, is someone’s phone vibrating?

The “phone vibrating” is a direct quote from one of the students following the 2017 fire drill at Tunxis Community College, referring to the sound of multiple -9838’s in the hallway as heard from behind a closed classroom door.

[quote=randomperson post_id=87480 time=1597107195 user_id=3878] [quote="Simplex 2903-9101" post_id=87475 time=1597093650 user_id=3578] you get comments from the GP like "I thought that was someone's phone was vibrating".

[/quote]

How could someone reasonably think that this, for instance, is someone’s phone vibrating?

[/quote]

The upper elementary (5th-6th grade) school that I went to had Simplex 4901-9805 horns in the hallways and 4904 strobes in each of the classrooms. During one fire drill, I didn’t even realize the alarms were going off until my teacher asked “Is anyone in the bathroom right now?” because there was an AC unit in the classroom was on, and I assumed it was vibrating against something. Granted, having the door closed with no alarm in the room was a big part of it, but modern electronic horns are much more distinctive in the sound they produce.

[quote="Gentex Guy" post_id=87857 time=1604957428 user_id=6212]

The upper elementary (5th-6th grade) school that I went to had Simplex 4901-9805 horns in the hallways and 4904 strobes in each of the classrooms. During one fire drill, I didn’t even realize the alarms were going off until my teacher asked “Is anyone in the bathroom right now?” because there was an AC unit in the classroom was on, and I assumed it was vibrating against something. Granted, having the door closed with no alarm in the room was a big part of it, but modern electronic horns are much more distinctive in the sound they produce.

[/quote]

did nobody notice the bright strobe flashing in the classroom?

[quote=idontwannaknow post_id=87880 time=1605236396 user_id=3956] [quote="Gentex Guy" post_id=87857 time=1604957428 user_id=6212]

The upper elementary (5th-6th grade) school that I went to had Simplex 4901-9805 horns in the hallways and 4904 strobes in each of the classrooms. During one fire drill, I didn’t even realize the alarms were going off until my teacher asked “Is anyone in the bathroom right now?” because there was an AC unit in the classroom was on, and I assumed it was vibrating against something. Granted, having the door closed with no alarm in the room was a big part of it, but modern electronic horns are much more distinctive in the sound they produce.

[/quote]

did nobody notice the bright strobe flashing in the classroom?

[/quote]

I don’t remember if anyone else from my class did, but I didn’t notice the strobe at first. I believe I was reading a book, so I wasn’t looking at the strobe. All of the lights in the room were on as well, which decreased the conspicuity of the strobe. It’s kind of scary to think that if I were the only one in the room, I may have never known the fire alarm was going off! The system was completely replaced with an EST voice evac system a few years after I left, so I’m sure no one is reading a book through fire drills anymore!