*beep beep beep* Now everyone be quiet!

[Grace Stapleton]

As we all know, Fremd recently decided to use an alarm when a hard lockdown drill is in effect.  Yeah sure, they’re only trying to keep us safe from all the terrible people who don’t have Ids on. But isn’t having an alarm a little obvious about what’s going on? If someone threatening is actually in the school, they’ll hear *beep beep beep* and see that kids are running inside classrooms and they’ll probably do the same.

The whole point of the lockdowns is to have the school appear to be empty. With an alarm going off, it’ll show that there is obviously something going on. Even if everyone is a classroom, someone could still find a way to get in there. If it goes off during a passing period, what if students can’t hear it? Again, I know the school just wants us to be safe but I think they could use a different approach.

So what do you think? Is the alarm good? Should we use a different method?

[Patrick Witt]

Honestly, I never really grasped the idea of lockdowns. Maybe it has a broader reason than I think, but I sort of chuckle to myself in lockdown drills. I simply can't imagine a criminal coming into school on a weekday to hear an alarm and think to himself, "Huh! No one is obviously here. I guess there's nothing I can do!" I honestly think in a realisitic situation, it'd be much safer to have everyone completely flee the building to avoid as much damage as possible. Like I said, maybe there's more to it than I get, but that's just how I look at it.

[Halle Gitelson]

I think that the school has the right idea, but they didnt really think it through all the way. If  I was the person entering the building i would want my entrance to be sneaky and successful. If the alarm went off i would know that the school is aware of my presence and i need to either hide or get out of there! the alarm is a dead give away.

[Josh Jyawook]

yes i think that the alarm warns everyone and i understand why they are doing this, but i think they should use a different approach. Just because its a wednesday they dont know we are in there. We could have that day off for all they know, and that alarm would give that away. If they somehow found a new method i think that could be possibly more effective.

[Lauren Andersen]

I agree with Nick. I'm 99% sure that if someone was to walk into a school on a wednesday, they're going to know that students are in there. So it's not a matter of fooling the intruder, I think it's a matter of making them aware that we know about their presence. The alarms are a good idea because the soft announcements made before were more difficult to hear. The alarms won't hide the students, but I think they have more benefits than not.

[Nick Fallico]

I really think that you would have to be an idiot to go into a school and think that no one is there when its a normal school day. I sure whoever is trying to take over the school remembers doing lock down drills when they were in school and they can probably figure out that everyone is just hiding. So is having an alarm good? Sure, it can only help to alarm people to hide since the intruder already knows that everyone is there.

[JohnPaulus V Arcangel]

Of course the idea of an alarm is good. What if all military bases, hospitals, houses , or the whole world didn't have alarm systems. When something bad happens how long before the rest of the group finds out that something did happen? Granted I know what you mean, if someone really wanted to go to school and kill people, an alarm is powerless to prevent that. But I think that the alarm can help reduce the casualties. Imagine WWII if they didn't have those air raid alarms....I do think that the new alarm at school is a joke. It sounds like I just won an atari game.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWB1U4oW4yw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9kyyJH3WFM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ewuh7FGVuaI

Now those would alarm people.