Meredith Sweet
Wash has had its share of fire drills, break-ins, earthquake stop-duck-and-cover drills, and of course, the bomb threats. Actually, Wash overall has had less bomb threats and assorted larceny than other schools in the district, in the past five years. But recently, it seems as though Wash students are the perpetrators behind some of the more daring, if not annoying, “attacks” on our school, rather than other schools, or even adults. It seems as though last year there was a string of “false alarms” that caused the several thousand Wash students to up and get out of their seats, spending an entire half class period or more outside on the sidewalks or sitting in the bleachers. I won’t be one to say it’s bad to get a “ break” every once in a while— and plenty of the administrators and parents would agree that practice makes perfect for emergency preparation. Since September 11, such emergency procedures became strict in schools, so the false alarms aren’t taken lightly. So why do we keep having them? False alarms— whether as threatening and uncommon as a bomb threat or as frequent and annoying as a fire drill are unsettling and unsafe. Several schools in the SFUSD have their fire alarms rigged so that if they go off, the fire department arrives. After all, who knows whether or not they’re real or a drill that is just being sprung on us? On the other hand, when someone calls the school and says there’s a bomb inside –like what happened in January of last school year– the school gets into a sort of hushed frenzy, where people wonder what’s going on, and why we’re being filed out into the bleachers for attendance. Let me ask you: if you heard there was a bomb inside the school, would you want to sit in the bleachers? It was a bit weird to be stuck outside with my second period class last year— and what put icing on the cake was the fact that when the police had dogs sniffing the school for that long, we skipped third period and jumped right to lunch: my favorite time of the day. I was probably the first person back inside. When I look back on that bomb threat –that, by all rights, could have been very real— I would have thought twice about staying so close to the school. The smarter students (and teachers) crowded their classes into the lower parts of the bleachers. Sure, those areas were dirtier and much colder, not to mention muddier, but at least if the school really did explode, they’d be semi-safe from being crushed under flying debris. Because something like that really could happen— just like the “unbelievable” September 11th happened, and how Columbine happened. Nobody WANTS to imagine their school, their friends, their classmates, or even their teachers get blown to bits, but when emergencies aren’t taking seriously, that’s exactly what could happen: you wouldn’t know the difference between a real emergency and a drill. As for the “petty larceny” that teenagers seem to be so capable of, it’s not worth it. The teenagers who shall remain nameless that pulled off a massive yearbook-and-computer heist were caught –and rather quickly, too. It’s not worth your attendance here in a normal high school (Read: mostly normal) to steal school property. So, just stray away from the fake emergencies (besides, who wants to waste their time trying to break glass or explain why they were out of class to a guard?) and the larceny. We’re here to learn.