It seems a number of schools are implementing fire alarm policies whereupon the students aren’t allowed to evacuate until the okay is given by the school administrators. My intuition would say that this is a dumb idea, especially considering many alarm signals are loud enough to drown out the PA system (I’m looking at you, SpectrAlert Advance). I also worry that we’re heading toward an arms race between schools and would-be attackers, which is a very dangerous prospect.
On the flip-side, I do remember reading a couple years back that immediate evacuation usually isn’t necessary in most cases. Perhaps the real test is to see if/how many students are injured or die due to not evacuating in districts that have these policies.
Very absurd and pathetic policy. What if a real fire occurred and the administrators said not to evacuate, they are putting lives in danger, even people with disabilities are put in big danger. This should not exist. Fire alarms are meant to alert people of a fire. Installers don’t mount them for fun, they serve a purpose.
This procedure is increasingly being adopted in schools all across America. I’ve heard that some schools even go so far as to apply full lockdown procedures, which include barricading the doors to the classrooms, as soon as the fire alarm goes off, such that once the need to evacuate the building is confirmed, the people inside the classrooms first have to remove the barricade before being able to get out.
We have yet to adopt it. I’m hoping they’re going to do some more reliable alternative if that ever gets implemented.
That being said, we have had people attempt arson at our school which did require a full evacuation. Luckily, we do have a verification of another school bell they manually activate to notify the trailers, so we can know when they do want us to evacuate already.
Not a good idea even if the fire sprinklers manager to control the fire because there could still be a lot of injuries due to smoke inhalation and getting lost in.a panic.
If schools are really that concerned about an armed intruder, they should go with police alarms because that could make the school slightly more safer than not evacuating if the alarms go off.
I would think that they wouldn’t want to make the school seem too much like prison (though to some kids, it already is prison to them ) so I don’t think they would go that way. Also, what happens if somebody managed to get control of them?