Line up, walk out quietly, and head towards your designated spot. For 10 years I have had the procedures of a fire drill ingrained in my head. On September 15, at 10:41 AM, the fire alarm started blaring and my class attempted to evacuate the building through the 100 stairwell where we were met with a congested mess of students. With little guidance from teachers and the loud talking of students, we managed to make it out slowly and inefficiently. 

When we made it outside I was met with more of a clogged mess, people not in their designated areas and nobody really knew what they were doing. A fire is a serious and potentially tragic event which results in over 1500 students needing to evacuate a school in a timely and efficient manner. Neither of these things were executed during the second fire drill of the year. 

Students failed to understand the expectations set by the administration of “to get at least 50 feet away from the building as fast as you can, but as safely as you can,” Assistant Principal Signorelli said. Students were up on the school walls and clogging the stairways to talk to their friends, in the event of an emergency they would have been putting themselves and others students at risk. 

Our first fire drill of the year was a preview of the most recent one, once again students received no guidance and the attempted evacuation of the school was complete mayhem. There were no fire alarms going off to signify the beginning of the drill, just Dr. Brewer coming over the speaker announcing that we should evacuate the school. 

Teachers should go over the expectations and specific procedures of their evacuation route to their students, so this failure of a fire drill does not happen again.