Why fire drills are like the SAT's

[taylweaver]

Here is why fire drills are like the SAT's:

For all the worth that people attach to them, SAT's primarily test one thing: how well a person can take the SAT's.

Today, I learned that fire drills also primarily test one thing: How quickly and efficiently a school can be evacuated in case of a fire drill.

Fire drills do very little to prepare the students for evacuation in case of an actual fire or emergency. And why is that, you ask? Am I saying that schools should not have fire drills, you ask? Well, preferably not during my lunch break, but I digress. Fire drills could and should prepare students to evacuate the building in a smooth and efficient way should there happen to be an actual emergency - but that doesn't quite work when the unexpected sounding of the fire alarm leads the school administration to conclude that this is not a scheduled fire drill, so therefore students should stay in their classrooms.

Excuse me?

Does this mean students can only evacuate the school in cases of planned emergencies?

Can you tell that there was a bit of confusion today in one of the schools where I work?

Basically, the alarm went off. Students started to evacuate. Then, maybe there was an announcement or maybe there wasn't, but teachers were told to return students to their classrooms - because this was not a fire drill. It took at least another few minutes for someone to get on the PA system and announce that this should be treated "like a fire drill."

We then stood outside for 20 minutes while the fire trucks came, the fire fighters looked around and confirmed that there was, indeed, no fire, and climbed back into their trucks and headed out.

Now doesn't that just inspire confidence in the ability of the school administration to handle emergency situations? "Oops, we didn't plan this. So it must be a false alarm."

In other words, I had an interesting lunch break.

Oh, and on the way home, I stopped at a school book sale. Hooray for $1 books. Yes, I came home with another bagful of children's literature. It just isn't safe to put me in a room with $1 children's books... my friends will have to be extra vigilant this Sunday (when there will be not one, but two book sales in my neighborhood!)

Comments

[j00j.livejournal.com]

Ahh, wonderful. Almost as wonderful when my former high school wasn't really organized for the trivial event of, oh, a bomb threat (this was after I graduated, but I heard about it from numerous people), and thus while they more or less evacuated successfully, teachers *left* while they were still out there (possibly assuming that it wasn't real and it would be okay), parents came and picked up kids without checking with anyone (between those two things they had no idea where large numbers of people were), and I think among other things the health center folks didn't get medications out, so there were people who needed to take things in a timely fashion who might have gone without. As it happened, the threat was a prank, but, well, they were lucky, considering just the lack of organization could have endangered people.

[nuqotw.livejournal.com]

Sad? Yes.

But if it makes you feel any better, my office building has fire drill every so often and we aren't very good at it either.

[mysticengineer.livejournal.com]

Whereas people in my office have a little more experience dealing with actual emergency evacuations...

[taylweaver.livejournal.com]

You know, much as it doesn't compare to what you're referring to, this is a New York City public high school we are talking about - or rather, five public high schools - because it got split up since the big school was in bad shape. So, based on that, and the need for the metal detector at the front door, I am guessing that they have had more than one occasion on which it was prudent to evacuate the building in a timely manner. High school students are very capable of setting fires. They're smart that way - or stupid, take your pick. I know it happened once at one of my other schools - I have heard stories. Mind you, some of the other emergency situations that have probably arisen in the past involve precisely the opposite situation - making everyone stay *inside* - that is, putting the school on lockdown. This would be the response to, say, a student getting a gun into the building. (Which, with the metal detectors at the door, might be slightly harder than setting a fire... but I have heard of something that happening too - and I think that story was from one of my coworkers who worked at this particular high school)

[margavriel.livejournal.com]

Why would you want to keep students inside the school if one of them had a gun? Isn't it worse that there be a gun inside school (where it could harm/kill other kids) than on the street (where the percentage of kids to adults is smaller)?

[taylweaver.livejournal.com]

In a school building, there are walls. Once the students are outside the school, they are all standing in one place, packed tightly together. While they are inside the building, they are separated into much smaller groups.

Book sales

[(Anonymous)]

What are these book sales of which you speak? Dangerous for me, too, but I can't help asking.

--ALG (abacaximamao.blogspot.com)

Re: Book sales

[taylweaver.livejournal.com]

Still trying to figure out exactly who you are...

But one is at the St. Agnes branch of the public library (Amsterdam in the 80's) - Friday thru Sunday.

The other is at the... is it Goddard Community Center? - anyway, it's on Columbus, around 86th st - well, the big banner for it is, anyway - I think the entrance will be around the corner. It is Saturday and Sunday.

On Sunday, both are open noon to 5. Not sure of the times on the other days.