RHS Practices Safety Procedures and Drills

set aside time during five periods of class Monday to practice different safety measures and drills in case there were ever an emergency at the school or on buses.

First period practiced a full lockdown, second hour focused on a tornado drill, third hour practiced bus safety with a bus evacuation (24 buses were present), fourth hour focused on a full evacuation fire drill and fifth hour students practiced a modified lockdown.

Assistant Principal Kimberly Budde said setting a day aside to practice safety drills was a good opportunity for students.

"It's good for students to know where to go from each class and location in case of an emergency. It's nice to have a practice run. It gives students a better view of the school and where their routes to safety are," Budde said.

And she found it especially helpful going through a full lockdown.

"It's amazing what your nerves and adrenaline do in [that given] situation," Budde said.

This was the first year that the school practiced all of the safety procedures in one day. In the past, it was done throughout the year.

"Over 90 percent of our faculty thought that doing all of the safety drills on one day was a good idea. In the past, even though a given drill occurred during one specific period, it still seemed to have a disruptive effect on a much greater portion of the day," Assistant Principal Tim Conboy said. "Since all of the drills and disruption occurred on one day, teachers could make decisions about their lessons in terms of having activities that perhaps required more action than concentration."

He added, "Based on the overwhelming positive response, we will do this [again] next year."

Concerning future safety drills, Rosemount High School has surveyed the staff and will analyze the feedback to determine what areas need improvement, according to Conboy. The fire and police departments also gave the school effective feedback to use for future drills.

"We have a multidisciplinary team that continuously analyzes our current procedures for the purpose of making each a best practice based on state and federal criteria," Conboy said. "District office personnel and RHS staff recently (beginning in May) reviewed and updated all of our procedures; these have been communicated with staff. We had a staff meetings as well as written communication to prepare for the day."