Recently false fire alarms have been set off during school hours creating concern among students and teachers alike. Several issues have been brought up as to how this could affect students’ education and focus during classes and whether or not this becomes an issue that needs to be monitored.

After interviewing Genice Weathers, the sophomore Accelerated World History teacher, she said this about the issue, she said, “If the halls were better monitored this wouldn’t be happening.” Weathers also said that this has happened in the past, however it’s never occurred this frequently and that the number of times it has been pulled is “ridiculous!”

“Pulling the fire alarm without an emergency is disruptive “especially if [students] are writing an essay. It gives them anxiety,” she said. Weathers views this issue as a safety concern to both faculty and students’ alike. “Shooters like to pull fire alarms to get everybody out of class(…) Makes you not want to walk out when there is a fire alarm.”

Along the same lines as Weathers’ opinion, Liz Roselman, the French teacher, saw this issue as a safety concern if an actual fire happens. Roselman believes students are pulling the fire alarms as pranks or to be funny but in doing so the alarm isn’t taken as serious.

“So my opinion is that I think it’s essential to have fire drills. And I think it’s sad and unfortunate if students do pull it just as a distraction because that is potentially dangerous, and it wastes time, which is bad for everybody, and it impacts student learning and safety,” she said.

Roselman, while not at Gunderson, in past years has seen this same issue, but not at this extent. Ms. Roselman said that she thinks the alarm is being pulled is because “[Somebody’s in a] bad mood or they want to make a point about something or they think they can get away with it(…) So it’s a sort of anti-social act.”

Roselman compared these false alarms to the “boy who cried wolf” and believes that “you have to talk to students about the issues and you hope that they will take it seriously.” If false fire alarms keep happening, more students will be affected and learning will be impacted.