Fire, tornado, evacuation, intruder — Everyone knows the school drills. But what they may not know is why the drills take place.
Last week, with the first tornado drill of the year, the Duncan Middle School completed its first round of safety drills.
Mark Monteith, the life management teacher, is the head of the School Safety Committee, which is comprised of a group of teachers, the school resource officer Allison Bray and two students. As resource officer, Bray is in charge of setting the dates for the drills.
Monteith said the drills are done to make sure kids are practicing safety and are prepared in case their is an actual emergency situation. He said the drills are meant to keep students safe and are required by law to be completed.
By practicing drills, he said there would be less panic if such a scenario were to come up. He said he doesn’t think the students would know what to do in a situation if they hadn’t practiced.
Bray said emergency drills are important and involve a lot of people to pull off correctly.
“All staff, Police Department, firefighters, super intendent and support staff are involved with the drills we do,¨ she said.
Bray said the Duncan Police Department, Duncan Public Schools, DPS security, Duncan Dire Department (depending on the drill) and school administration are in charge of conducting the drills. She said these entities are kept in the loop on when something is a drill and when its an emergency.
Seventh-grader Bricelyn Brown said she thinks the drills are intended to let students know what to do correctly and to get themselves out of sticky situations.
“We wouldn’t know what to do,” Brown said.
She said some students don’t listen, but by practicing, they would have a better idea what to do in an emergency.
Blayden Guyear, another seventh-grade student, said he doesn’t know what the school does its drills, but he does have a guess.
“Mostly likely for safety reasons, he said.
His favorite part about the drills is getting out of class, but he does understand that that students wouldn’t know what to do in an emergency if it wasn’t for the drills.
