Fire Drills.....

We had a fire drill in our little bitty school, as required by state law. Thankfully this one occurred late in the day, when temperatures had moderated somewhat.

It reminded me of fire drills at some of the schools where I have taught in the past.

My first job was at a middle school, and I was scared to death of the principal. I heard that when she was hired, the husband of one of the teachers asked what she looked like. The teacher picked up a grapefruit and put it on the refrigerator and said, "There. That's what she looks like." She wasn't too far off. One day we had a fire drill, and for some reason the fire department actually came and went through the building. I don't know if it was a bomb threat, if they were doing some routine inspection or something, or if that was just another example of this woman's "thoroughness." At any rate, the firemen went through the building, and when they opened the door to one classroom, they found......
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class in session.

Oops.

The principal was both mortified and pissed off. We fire drilled ALL AFTERNOON. Every time we would get back in our classrooms and get settled, the fire alarm would go off again. Keep in mind, these were middle schoolers. A fly buzzing in the classroom could disrupt any attempts at learning, and we marched in and out all day. I was afraid not to teach; the drill sergeant might pop into my classroom at any minute and make an example of ME. I had new carpet in my classroom that year, and it was muddy outside. You would have to be familiar with the red clay of the South to understand that the afternoon's fire drills were indelibly woven into the fibers of the carpet in my room. The mud is probably still there. I never did hear what the principal did to the teacher whose class was in session during the fire drill. I doubt they ever found the body.

When I was teaching at a large high school very close to that middle school, fire drills were a little more of an adventure. The building had nooks and crannies from which I couldn't find my way back to my classroom. I inevitably lost a few students by the time the all-clear signal sounded. And by the time I made a couple of wrong turns and went down the wrong halls, what few students I had were invariably already back in the classroom before I was. I'm not kidding about this building. We had a blood drive in the "small gym" once, and I decided I would set an example by giving blood during the school day. I made my appointment during my planning period, and when I was through I grabbed a student by the sleeve and told him I needed some help. "What's the matter, do you think you're going to pass out?" he asked. "No," I said, "I need you to show me how to get back to my room." The best thing that could happen to me was for a fire drill to occur during my planning period. On those occasions I didn't go outside at all, I just stayed in my classroom and hid out of sight of the window in my door.

At that same school we went through a series of bomb threats the year we had a new principal. I don't know if it was directly related to the fact that it was the first female principal of a high school in that county, but it sure seemed odd that it happened that year. Standard procedures called for evacuating the school whenever a bomb threat was called in, no matter the degree of actual perceived threat. It didn't take the students long to figure THAT out. In a 10-day period, we had nine bomb threat evacuations. Two in one day, so for some reason the delinquents didn't call one in on two days. It was late October, and it really became annoying. Some teachers had "bomb threat" bags they kept in their classrooms. The bags had snacks, bottled water, and reading material. That was just for the teachers, too. After one particularly trying day, some of us started including a change of clothes in our bomb threat bags. (That's really what we called them too.) One day we were evacuated as usual, and we gathered in the stadium just as we were supposed to. Then it started to rain.

It wasn't really cold weather yet, but it was cool enough that sitting in the rain was a tad unpleasant. The students bolted, with some teachers screaming at them, "Stay where you are! Do not go to your cars! Stay in the stadium." Seriously? Do you really think these inner-city kids are going to listen to THAT? I had on one of my favorite outfits, a peach-colored rayon pantsuit, back when those were in fashion. I was soaked to the skin pretty quickly. The beleaguered principal didn't know what else to do, so she called for the buses to come get the kids, the few who hadn't already left in their own cars or begged rides from their friends. The wet, bedraggled teachers ambled back to the building to see what our instructions would be. The announcement was made that it would become a teacher workday, and teachers should go home and change out of their wet clothes and return to school. Me? I lived 35 minutes away. I went home and built a fire. I think it was after that incident that school officials finally met with people-who-know-what-they're-doing-and-policy-be-damned, and it was mutually decided that our evacuation policy was causing all the problems. The safety officials assured the school officials that if they would NOT evacuate the building every time a bomb threat was called in, pretty soon the thugs would tire of their shenanigans, and the school would NOT blow up. Probably. It worked.

When I changed high schools the first time, I taught in a trailer. I had the only double-wide trailer classroom, so I guess I was Queen of the trailers. My first month there, a fire drill was scheduled during my planning period. Perfect. It wasn't that I was afraid of getting lost, since I only had to step outside the door and move away from the "burning" trailer, it was just an inconvenience. I decided ahead of time that I wouldn't go out when the fire alarm sounded. They couldn't check ALL the trailers, and mine was the farthest away from the building. I figured the odds were in my favor. What I DIDN'T count on was the ferocity of that fire alarm. When it sounded, I was out the door and bolting for higher ground before I realized what was happening. I didn't count on trailers having their own independent fire alarms; mine was right above my desk. And it was enough to signal the approach of the USS Harry S. Truman. I can STILL hear that sound in my head, and it was 13 years ago. The trailer isn't there anymore, but I think the fire alarm is still hanging in the air where the trailer used to be. I realize that is a stupid sentence. It's the Friday before Christmas Break.

We are required to hold fire drills once a month during the school year. The way I've got it figured, I only have to do 15 more of them AT THE MOST.

Maybe I won't get lost.