Follow up: School battles break-down

There is an update to the story we originally brought you in the October 2015 edition of The Warrior Record.

Last Thursday, during the fire drill in sixth period, the alarms still did not go off in some classrooms and portables throughout the school. Students and teachers expressed their concerns about this issue, and Mr. Bohnet vocalized thoughts of his own.

“I’m not sure why that didn’t go off because I know we had techs in to check our systems,” Boehnet said. “I thought these were all resolved. So what we need to do is find out why this is happening.”

Mr. Bohnet took down names of teachers whose rooms were not getting the alarm, and promised further action to tackle this issue.

“We take this information, we get back to the district, and we put an emergency work order in to make sure that these things are rectified,” said Bohnet.

On Wednesday of this past week, another fire drill was held during fifth period, and more tests were held after school.

Today, according to Mr. Robertson, everything is fully functional.

“All the zones are ready to go,”

— Assistant Principal Mr. Robertson

“All the zones are ready to go,” Robertson said.

 

 

The original printed version of the story in the October 2015 edition of The Warrior Record:

Since school started, students and staff have experienced a few issues including faulty fire alarms, classroom water leaks, and seemingly out of service elevators, all of which administration is trying to address.
One of the biggest issues deals with the fire alarms. The alarm sounded on September 17th just before dismissal and some teachers experienced problems with not being able to hear the alarms in their portables. However, in one interesting case, Mr. Schwartz, a science teacher in the building, mentioned that an alarm never went off in his class either. ”Normally when we have a fire drill, the alarm in my room, 181 does ring,” Mr. Schwartz said. “However on Thursday, when we had the ‘false alarm’, my room alarm did not ring.” To administration’s surprise, this issue was never brought up to the principal, Mr. Bohnet. This revelation prompted the head plant operator, Mr. Sprecher, to assess the situation as soon as possible. Administration is tackling this problem school wide–and they know exactly why the alarm went off in the first place.
“There was a technician working on the alarms,” said Mr. Sprecher. “He was going through all the systems, and the auditorium wing was down. When the technician turned it back on, the fire alarm was ‘in fault’, which means it was set to go off. And then it went off.”
Mr. Bohnet said, “Occasionally, the alarm may go off during testing. This time was unexpected since we usually test the system after school.” Most students were not even aware of this–in fact, most thought the alarm was intentionally pulled by a student. “I had no idea it was actually a maintenance problem,” said Anna Salmeron, 11th grade. “I thought someone was just pulling the alarm as a prank.”
Another problem is water leaking into classrooms on days of severe rain, which has been heavier than usual this fall. This has affected staff members such as art teacher Mrs. Wallen and journalism and AP Capstone teacher Mrs. Iovino. “The water flooded into the building through a custodial room next door,” Mrs. Wallen said, “and then came roaring into my classroom from the hallway, flooding the front of my classroom.” At first it was thought that water was coming in through leaks in the walls–but the source of the rainwater turned out to be something entirely different.
“It’s not a leaky wall. There was an awning up over the door, and there was so much water that the awning collapsed and created a funnel. It took all the water in through the top of the door,” said Sprecher of Mrs. Wallen’s classroom. Since this incident, the awning over the top of the door has been reinforced so that water will no longer pour in. “Mrs. Iovino’s was something different. Her window sill, we believe, was cracked.” However, bottom floor classes weren’t the only ones having problems with leaks. According to Austin Aiani, 10th grade, Mrs. Alvarez’s room had a leak in the ceiling as well. Mr. Bohnet and Mr. Sprecher will be assessing the breaches in the structure.
One of these issues has been resolved. An out of date elevator certificate of operation has been replaced with an updated version. While the elevator was still functional, to students and teachers, the elevator would seem like it was neglected. According to Mr. Sprecher, the lack of an up to date certificate of operation could be the fault of the elevator company. The elevator is serviced monthly to ensure that there are no mechanical flaws, according to Sprecher.
Mr. Bohnet said the administration addresses building issues as they come up right away with the district.