As students made their way to their after-school curriculars, to whatever mode of transportation they were going to take to leave, the fire alarms went off. Students around the school were put into a position where they had to make key decisions, yet it showed that some students relied heavily on their training from drills.
“I saw many other students calmly walking towards the nearest exit and the staff members directing students safely to the nearest possible exit,” sophomore Natalie Adam said.
Students walked at a moderate pace and were very diligent about what to do. They made their way to the closest exit. Once flooded outside, students were told to keep a good distance away from the school and to keep out of the streets.
Some students crowded in the grassy areas outside of the school, and those near the PAC doors waited anxiously in the student parking lot.
“[We need to] get kids to take the fire alarms more seriously, as most of them didn’t seem to care about the potential of there being a fire,” junior Colton Budzynski said.
To some, the students walking out slowly could be seen as staying calm in a potentially stressful situation, but it could also be seen as student ignorance. Students need to sometimes lean away from their training and instead rely on their survival instincts.
“But I would like to work on helping students think in those situations where they’re not just doing what their teacher told them to do the last time we did a drill, but they’re looking around them,” associate principal Danyce Letkewicz said. “They’re figuring out if there’s anything dangerous around them, and figuring out how to exit the building safely.”
Students and staff can take this time to look at how they reacted during this event in order to understand what they hope to improve on with themselves, as well as what they hope to see change with the drills and education involving fire escapes.
