​Fire Drill at FCHS Not a Protest

by Leslie Lytle, Messenger Staff Writer

To honor the 17 students and staff members killed in the Feb. 14 massacre at Parkland High School in Florida, Women’s March Youth called for supporters around the world to walk out of their schools and places of business for 17 minutes at 10 a.m. on March 14.
Four of the Franklin County’s public schools held fire drills that day. The Franklin County High School (FCHS) fire drill occurred at 10 a.m., raising complaints the drill supported the walkout and by inference protested guns.
“We have to have a monthly fire drill,” explained FCHS Principal Roger Alsup, “and with the weather and spring break coming up for an entire week, we had to get it done.”
The FCHS assistant principal in charge of fire drills consults with Alsup about scheduling. “We try to rotate the drills throughout the day, because we don’t want to have a disruption during the same block of classes,” Alsup said. “We need to have all the administrators there and the school resource officers. There was rain in the forecast for next week, and then we had a week of spring break. We’ve gotten in a bind in the past.”
Director of Schools Stanley Bean concurred. Two of the fire drills held March 14 had been rescheduled from previous days due to conflicting circumstances. The fire drills at Broadview Elementary, Decherd Elementary and South Middle School did not coincide with the world-wide 10 a.m. planned walkout.
“Some are saying the fire drills were the result of a directive from the board or central office,” Bean said. “That is simply not true.”
Earlier in the month Bean had received a communication from the state regarding several walkout events students might seek to participate in. “The state advised talking to the student leaders and making sure they understood why they were walking out,” Bean said.
Bean communicated the advice to his school administrators and several of them contacted him asking if there was a system-wide directive. Bean decided to “let the schools handle it as they chose. I emphasized safety of the students was the number one priority. I was not aware of any plans for March 14.”
“My understanding was the the March 14 walkout was about memorializing the students killed,” Bean insisted, “not guns.”
North Middle School allowed students to walkout and observe a moment of silence if they chose.
“Earlier in the month, I communicated with students who were talking about walking out,” Alsup said. “I wanted to give them the opportunity to walk out and to let teachers know so they could plan around that. But the Friday before the scheduled walkout, I was told there wasn’t enough interest.”
“After the fire drill, we realized some students were going to stay outside. We let them stay outside and protest. No one was disciplined or got in trouble for participating.”
At Sewanee Elementary School, Principal Kim Tucker planned to have the school resource officer escort students who wanted to participate to the flagpole area. “No students asked to participate,” Tucker said. “If another such event should occur, we plan to do a ‘Walk-up’ similar to that shared by Monteagle Elementary School (MES).”
At nearby MES in Marion County students were encouraged to honor the lives of those lost by ‘walking up’ to someone who had different views and to get to know them, to sit with someone at lunch who sat alone, or perhaps to ask a student who might be disruptive in class how she or he was doing.
“We need to give forethought to how to deal with circumstances like these,” Bean stressed. “I’m very proud of all our schools. They all handled it very well.”
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