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EDITORIAL Lowell’s emergency procedures are lacking: We need a new plan
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rom Hurricane Harvey to Hurricane Maria, from earthquakes in Mexico to fires in Napa and Sonoma county, natural disasters have been sweeping the world. In these times of trouble, it is especially important to look at our own safety procedures to make sure we’re prepared for potential emergencies. On Jan. 10, 19 of 80 Lowell registries failed the annual lockdown drill. Out of the 19 registries that failed, 10 were supervised by substitute teachers, according to assistant principal Holly Giles. Lowell did not do an adequate job of educating substitutes about basic emergency procedures, according to substitute teacher Gina Colligan. “You come in as a substitute and you have to figure out everything about the school immediately—you are given almost no information,” Colligan said. “You are given an attendance list and, if you’re lucky, you will be given a lesson plan.” This method of informally educating substitutes on the emergency procedures proved to be ineffective, as demonstrated by the lockdown drill failure. In response to questions from The Lowell regarding the procedures, assistant principal Orlando Beltran implemented a new standardized system for educating substitutes. However, there’s more to be done. At Lowell, there are several issues regarding the safety procedures, including problems with the evacuation routes, the public address system and the manner in which drills are practiced. The school does not provide students with accurate simulations of emergency situations by only exercising certain drills during registry. Lockdown, earthquake and evacuation drills are only practiced during registry because this is the only way the school can make sure that most students are on campus, according to Giles. However, as registry is 15 minutes out of a seven-hour school day, it comprises only three percent of the normal school schedule, making it very unlikely that an actual
emergency would happen during that time. “Most of the drills are convenient to happen during reg, but realistically, an actual emergency is not necessarily going to happen during registry,” assistant principal Margaret Peterson said. Furthermore, because students are only able to participate in drill simulations during this time of the day, their knowledge of where to go and what to do is limited to what they’ve experienced in that classroom. Therefore, students are not familiar with the evacuation routes from their other various classrooms, as well as the procedures for different situations. “All teachers teaching all classes should be required for every single class to spend five minutes to diagram the evacuation route to show where the students are supposed to go,” biology teacher Mark Wenning said. “Because if we only do it in registry, then students are only going to know where to go from their reg room.” Another issue concerns Lowell’s two communication systems: the public address system and the telephones. These systems are simultaneously utilized for announcements in case either one malfunctions. In Wenning’s case, the telephone system is important for conveying information. “The PA system in this room is not so good, so it’s good the announcements also come over the phone system,” Wenning said. The lines of the PA system were cut during the earthquake retrofitting construction and were not repaired, although the contractors knew about the issue. On Sept. 26, Beltran sent a survey to teachers about the PA system’s defectiveness and 11 teachers reported issues. The telephones were fixed on Sept. 29 but the PA system wires remain unrepaired. Giles hopes to retrofit the PA system by replacing the current system with a live video-streaming service in an effort to prevent any future cases of miscommunication during an actual emergency. Alongside Beltran, she intends to provide more visual messages than auditory. Giles is currently researching
See EDITORIAL on pg. 21
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