Since school has started at San Luis Obispo High School, fire detectors have been going off frequently and without warning in the newly constructed math building. None of them are planned drills, they all are false alarms. It is confusing and very disruptive. I think something should be done to reduce the amount of false alarms occurring during class.
There has been at least two false alarms in the math building, the first occurring as early as the second day of school. Only one has occurred while I personally was in the building, but for a false alarm, it was very disruptive.
“If there was a fire in the building, we needed to get out,” said Freshman Macey Wilkerson.
About halfway through third period, the fire alarm started up. Everyone grew quiet and just sat in their seats, confused. As freshmen, we had never practiced a fire drill at SLOHS before. We hadn’t even talked about it. An evacuation plan seems like an important thing to mention to incoming freshmen, and I think administration should take more steps to ensure that everyone knows what to do.
“We knew to get in a line and go outside, but we didn know where to meet. We stood outside of the math building,” said freshmen Eva Machado.
We will have fire drills later, but the confusion could be a hazard right now. I think that an explanation of fire drills should be given to freshmen during the first week of school, or even during orientation.
There was no sign of a fire, and the drill ended up being a false alarm. It wasn’t a scheduled drill, but there was no apparent cause. Some speculate that the fire alarm went off due to a small fire from construction smoke next to the building.
“I think the construction is really affecting the school,” said Machado.
Having to evacuate and wait outside while administration made sure it was safe took a good chunk out of our working time. The classwork I otherwise would have finished turned into homework.
“[The drill] also went into our break time,” said Machado. Break at SLOHS is 15 minutes. As for the classwork, “we got time to work on it the next day,” said Machado, so for her, it wasn’t too bad. Still, periods here at SLOHS are seventy minutes long. For the drill to go into break, it would have to take up at least 15 minutes. Fifteen minutes takes away a good chunk of our class time.
If there is a real fire at SLOHS, then the fire alarms would be very useful. However, small causes such as construction mishaps, or no cause at all, cause a big disruption and loss of class time. If we stop the fires before they start, the issue will no longer persist and we can continue through our school day peacefully without the alarms blaring over our heads.
