Imagine being in the middle of a crucial presentation that’s 30% of your grade when all of a sudden a loud voice decleares, “The fire alarm has been activated. Please evacuate the building.” And of course, bye bye perfect grade! Everyone starts getting up to leave, and as you proceed to follow them, you accidentally bump into your presentation and “splatt” it falls onto the floor. You try to pick it up, but just make it worse by dropping your perfect essay into the sticky mess. “Let’s go! Let’s go!” yells your teacher, so you have to… go.

The fire alarm is a safety precaution invented in 1852 to make sure everyone has time to evacuate if there’s a building on fire. But now teens are using the fire alarms as a joke, and in the act of trying to make your “friends” laugh, you could get into a lot of trouble.

On Monday (November 26) and Friday (November 30) the fire alarm was pulled once during 2nd period and another during 4th period (or second lunch). Did you know pulling the fire alarm in a non-emergency situation is considered a Class B misdemeanor, up to 180 days in prison, and sometimes even up to a 2,000 dollar fine. Yea, good luck seeing your “friends” again.

A word of warning form Mr. Estrella:

“False alarm pulls are harmful because we never know if it’s a shooting, or some sort of danger where there is no need to evacuate. It also manipulates the students in a way to not respond the way they should. People need to be alert. In The Code Of Conduct (on page 14) it states that a false alarm pull is considered a Level 4 offense, a court hearing may be set, and the student can be on suspension for a very long time. The advice that I have for students that think it’s “funny” or “just a joke” is, consider why the alarms are there in the first place. Think about what could happen if there is an active shooter. If we misuse these things then it will be really hard to keep students safe. Finally, know that we have leads and do a lot of investigation.”

No hall passes, wasting class time, and waiting in the cold field – trust me, it’s fun for no one. Don’t do something that you will regret, and remember don’t go getting ideas because, you will get caught.