Following last year’s success with a trial “drill day”, the administration made the decision over the summer to permanently move all the emergency drills to one day. Students will practice fire, code red, and severe weather drills on Tuesday, September 10 with their second period classes.

The administration decided on the change in order to reduce the number of times classes must be disrupted every year to meet the state requirement of three fire drills, a lockdown drill, and a severe weather drill.

“We got good feedback from both teachers and students after last year’s drill day in the sense of we only have to interrupt the schedule once as opposed to several times throughout the school year,” Ryan Rubenstein, assistant principal, said.

By compressing all the drills into one day, the school will cut down on time taken away from classes as well as the number of times a year the schedule will be interrupted for drills, Rubenstein said.

“There’s a special schedule for drill day. Classes are the late start length of 41 minutes, but we don’t start late,” Rubenstein said. “Students attend their first and second period classes and then there is a break after second period where students will do the drills with their second period class, and then they will go to their third period class when the drills are over.”

Classes will then resume on a Late Start schedule, meaning all classes will be 41 minutes long, and the times will be the same as a regular Late Start bell schedule.

Despite the state requirement of three fire drills, there will only be one drill day, as the other two fire drills must be a surprise.