Safety First: The Validity of Fire Drills vs. ALICE Drills
Photo from Vigilance Risk.
Aashi Iyengar
Once every month, students hear their school’s fire alarm go off. They immediately stop their learning and leave their classrooms for about 10 minutes. All this, just to practice for a scenario that hasn’t occurred in half a century.
Photo from Safety & Security / ALICE for K-12 Schools.
Comparatively, in the first three months of 2022, there have been 14 school shootings. Yet schools practice active shooter/lockdown, or ALICE, drills only twice annually.
Wisconsin State Legislature is very clear about how many fire drills are required for schools annually. Statute 118.07 states, “Once each month, without previous warning, the person having direct charge of any public or private school shall drill all pupils in the proper method of departure from the building in case of a fire, except when the person having direct charge deems that the health of the pupils may be endangered by inclement weather conditions.”
However, even though these drills are practiced often, school fires are extremely rare. According to the National Fire Protection Association, or the NFPA, the last U.S. school fire with ten or more deaths occurred in 1954. This fire at Cleveland Hill School in Cheekowaga, New York, resulted in 15 lost lives. These statistics show that the last extremely devastating school fire was over half a century ago.
School safety drills are another matter that Wisconsin State Legislature is extremely clear about. Legislature states, “At least twice annually, without previous warning, the person having direct charge of any public or private school shall drill all pupils in the proper method of evacuation or other appropriate action in case of a school safety incident.” However, school shootings occur far too often for schools to only be practicing this procedure twice a year.
Even though we are only four months into the new year, there have already been 22 school shootings in the United States. There have been 106 shootings since 2018, and 34 shootings occurred just last year. A shooting occurred on November 30, 2021, in which a student killed four other students and injured seven at an Oxford, Michigan high school. This was the deadliest school shooting since May 2018.
According to Mr. Otto, one of Hamilton’s assistant principals, administration has a say in how many school safety drills our district practices. Otto responded that the decision to do two drills a year is a superintendent’s prerogative and determined by Dr. Mielke. The reason for the decision to do two drills is that the district feels that the proper balance has been found between practicing school safety drills in general.
Mr. Otto stated:
I think there’s a balance between practicing school safety but then also instilling a culture of fear, and I think you want to try and avoid that. We want school to be viewed as a safe place where we understand that safety is our number one priority… In terms of the actual drills, I think you want to find a balance between teaching students what to do and then we practice the drills a few times a year. Students should have the knowledge of what to do but at the same time, not instill a roaming fear in the school body.
Deputy Estes also stated, “We do practice [having] kids evacuat[e] the building for different reasons than the actual ALICE drill.” She further explained that fire drills practiced the evacuation part of all situations, because not all students will stay in their rooms if there is an intruder in the school.
Estes also added that additional security measures, like walk-throughs of each school take place on a weekly basis from an officer on patrol. About the walk-throughs, Estes states, “It’s never the same day and it’s never the same time, and sometimes you’ll see the same person over and over again, but there’s always other people. Every once in a while, we have two or three school checks in a week just because there is a new person that’s up here and they [want to] come in and check the buildings.”
Hamilton administration believes that the methods of practice currently in place are sufficient to keep Hamilton students and faculty safe.
I, however, believe that the ratio of fire drills practiced in schools to school safety drills is insufficient. In our present society, school shootings are becoming extremely common. For that reason, we should be practicing safety drills more in the interest of keeping students as safe as possible. Additionally, fire drills exist to practice a very simple procedure. Everyone knows that if the fire alarm goes off, you walk out the nearest exit and wait outside. School shootings are much more complex and, depending on the scenario, could require multiple different reactions based on the intruder’s location. In certain scenarios, students may have to barricade their classrooms, whereas in others, they may have to run to the nearest safe place as fast as they can. Making that decision can be difficult and extremely important, so there should be more than two safety drills a year to practice how to act in a stressed situation like a school shooting.
Safety drills should still be moderated, though. There is no point in practicing school safety drills as much as we practice fire drills, as there is a certain point at which practicing more will do no good. However, I still feel that we may need more discussion to find the right balance.
Traditionally, we practice ALICE drills once a semester during second block. Before the drill is practiced, teachers address the students in that particular class on what the procedure is for their particular location in the building. While this plan covers aspects of these situations, it only covers what would happen during that specific time at that specific place. Students are not getting the information that they need to know on where to go if an intruder enters during another class period or at a different time. For instance, what would happen if an intruder entered the building during a lunch period? We do not practice drills at lunch time because of the amount of confusion it would cause. However, are students aware of what to do in that scenario? Where should they go if they are in direct sight of an intruder? Do they run, hide, or fight? These are some questions that should be discussed so that students have a better understanding of what to do in strange scenarios such as this.
There are some things Hamilton is doing correctly. School shootings are extremely traumatizing, so there is no need to recreate that with live recreations of these events. In some areas (not at Hamilton), active shooter drills are a common practice at schools. The objective of active shooter drills are to prepare staff to respond to protect students and themselves in the event of an armed intruder or active shooter emergency and to maintain preparedness in a trauma-informed way to minimize potential for raising anxiety or re-traumatizing staff. However, these drills tend to do the opposite. A report obtained by NBC News found active shooter drills in schools correlated with a 42 percent increase in anxiety and stress and a 39 percent increase in depression among those in the school community, including students, teachers, and parents. Drills to this extent should not exist because this practice could clearly lead to severe interpersonal issues within the school community. In this regard, Hamilton is doing a good job of not creating more anxiety for students and this aspect should be continued with ALICE drills.
Statistics show that school shootings are much more prominent than school fires in today’s world. Our school has a balance, but I feel that Wisconsin State Legislature is limiting what we can achieve in terms of balance between fire drills and school shooting drills. I also feel that as a school, we should practice or educate students more on these situations, to ensure the safety, as best as possible, for all students and faculty at Hamilton.
