Thursday, September 27, 2018

Expected Drill


There's always a fire drill on a minimum day.

I was surprised to learn Tuesday was a minimum day. The kiddos would get out at 12:45 so the teachers could ready their rooms for back to school night.

When I checked in for the day, I asked about the fire drill. The secretary said there wasn't a fire drill.

No fire drill? On a minimum day? Really?

Okay, fine. But on my way to the classroom, I ran into another sub. He mentioned something about a fire drill.

I knew it! I called the secretary. She said she'd check.

As the students walked into period 1, one of them mentioned that there was a fire drill in ten minutes. I figured she knew what she was talking about. And she did. Ten minutes into class, the principal came over the PA to do his usual talk before the fire drill began.

At least this fire drill was mostly painless.

20 comments:

  1. Its good use of time for a minimum day I think. I always liked fire drills. A little something different to break up the day.

    betty

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  2. kids know about these events because it gets them out of the classroom. Funny that the secretary didn't know

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    1. Yeah, right? But sometimes the office staff is thinking about other things.

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  3. Huh, seems like that secretary really wasn't on the ball.

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  4. I remember at work last year my Team Leader had '10am Remember' written into her diary but couldn't remember what she was supposed to be remembering. She asked us in case it was something she was supposed to be remembering about one of the team but none of us had a clue either.

    A little while later realisation dawned; it was a fire drill. Obviously she couldn't write that in her diary because the general staff weren't supposed to know about it, hehe.

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    1. Oops. Although, why can't the general staff know about it? That seems silly.

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  5. I remember (in my time of yore) fire drills were random. We were always surprised when one happened, but if I remember correctly they were usually during 3rd or 4th periods. Maybe it was just me that was clueless. lol

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    1. Clueless until now, that is. Better late than never. :-)

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  6. Yeah, the kids always seem to know, don't they?

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    1. Some teachers post the schedule on their walls. It's not hard to figure out when they are. It's not a secret, either.

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  7. It's weird to schedule fire drills. Here they're always surprise.

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    1. At a school, they have to be scheduled. Teachers would have a conniption if they were just sprung, especially if a test was going on or something. (Having to evacuate for an actual emergency--which does happen from time to time--is something that they understand. We've had to evacuate for a couple fires--ceramics kiln burned, classroom heater smoked, someone lit a trash can on fire. And they make us evacuate after an earthquake.)

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  8. Commonplace communication gap! I often see this.

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  9. We seem to have one every October. They seem to consistently choose the coldest day of the month. The weather in October is all over the place for us; we range from 80 degrees to snow flurries. They never pick a nice, warm, sunny day for it.

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    1. There's a state-wide drill that they do in October. It seems like they do end up on the worst days, don't they?

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  10. The pain of fire drills. Usually they happened in my favourite class. I probably wouldn't have minded if it had been something I wasn't so fussed on.

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  11. A talk before the fire drill? I thought the point of the drills was to catch the students by surprise and make sure they are capable of getting out of the building in a timely organized manner. It's been a while since I've been in school though…

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    1. Nah, the purpose of the drill is so that students know what do in the case of an emergency. I suppose someone is timing things, but to get them to hussle, we have to make sure they understand what the big deal is. They don't get it.

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