Safety Drills: How Well Do You Know Them?

An insight into Lindbergh’s staff and students’ thoughts on safety drills

Elizabeth Cleary Copy-Editor

Safety drills have always been a hot topic issue in schools. Everyone has a different opinion on how they should be taught and executed and to what extent. Within LIndbergh High School, many students and staff hold their own viewpoints on what Lindbergh does well and what it can improve on in regards to these drills.

In a recent schoolwide, student survey, many of the respondents expressed concerns about their understanding of the safety drills at Lindbergh. A common theme among students was anxiety regarding the amount of information they receive about the drills. Many respondents felt that the drills are not discussed thoroughly, with only 13.5% of those respondents claiming that all seven teachers have gone over intruder drills with their class. Furthermore, only 27.8% of those students that responded have said that all seven teachers have gone over fire drill procedures and only 14.8% have had seven teachers go over tornado procedures.

“I think that there needs to be more discussion instead of practice, as I could not name the meetup points nor the evacuation routes but do know to walk in a single file line. We need to know the logistics before we can perform a safe evacuation,” one respondee mentioned in the anonymous survey.

Another respondent commented, “I feel like there could be more alternatives and directions given. In the event an intrusion takes place, I think students will be very panicked and under prepared.”

Carena Heilich-Henry, a teacher at Lindbergh, is an advocate for the importance of safety. During her time at Lindbergh, she said she has attended many training days during which she has been taught the different procedures for the drills.

Heilich-Henry explained that, in order to prepare for emergency situations, teachers are required to watch safety videos at the beginning of the year. There are questions following the videos that they must answer and then submit, helping to inform Lindbergh staff and troubleshoot any areas of confusion.

“I will say, when problems arise or we see flaws in our current plan and system and we see inefficiencies, there is a team of teachers that come together usually… in order to solve those problems or to make things better,” Heilich-Henry commented.

This year, Lindbergh staff was provided with a slideshow in order to ensure that the drills were being taught consistently to students. However, even with that slideshow, it is ultimately up to the individual teacher to decide how indepth to talk about safety drills.

“A lot of times it is just encouraged, I would say, that you can talk about as much or as little as you want with your students as long as you do something,” said Heilich-Henry.

Courtney Klohmann, a teacher in the science department, has a slightly more complicated situation in that she does not have a fixed classroom.

“They told us to go through the safety procedures in all of our classrooms; because I’m a traveling teacher, I have three classrooms, so I have to know the different safety procedures for three different rooms,” Klohmann commented. That being said, Lindbergh works to stay open and honest with its students about drills, keeping students and staff aware that in a real drill, there would be a multitude of options and pathways to choose from.

“They (Lindbergh) did a good job at teaching us that in a realistic situation, there is no set pattern that you can just automatically go to, you have to base what you do on the situation. So you have to analyze a situation and then react based on what’s happening,” Klohmann said.

While both Klohmann and Heilich-Henry note that there are improvements that need to be made and more consistency in how often the subject is talked about, they also acknowledge that Lindbergh provides resources that ensure safety, creating a secure environment for both students and staff.

“I think knowledge is power, I think high schoolers are old enough to understand the situation. I don’t think you should go into detail necessarily with an elementary kid… but high schoolers, I think, they would feel empowered with more information,” Heilich-Henry said.