Following a recently scheduled fire drill, Dulaney High School (DHS) experienced an unscheduled evacuation.

As mandated by the state of Maryland and organized by Baltimore County Public Schools (BCPS), DHS aims to arrange one scheduled fire drill per month, including during summer school. According to Assistant Principal Christopher Parker, who is in charge of schoolwide safety drills, DHS utilizes an online program to prepare for instances of planned and unplanned safety drills.

“It gives a basic rundown of what we are in terms of your numbers, in terms of our numbers, in terms of who our boss is, and it lays out the chain of command during emergencies,” said Parker. “It talks about command posts and how we’ll set that up if something bad should happen.”

Though DHS fulfilled its monthly fire drills goal earlier in April, the fire alarm sounded suddenly at 12:21 p.m. on Friday, April 19. Assistant Principal Kate Smith declined to comment on the cause of the alarm but noted that it was an unscheduled incident. As of Monday, April 22, the case has been closed.

In an investigation like the one that followed the emergency evacuation, camera footage is immediately reviewed. If the incident is believed to be a result of student intervention, student schedules are reviewed.

“If students were missing from a class period, I will interview teachers to see like, ‘did you let them go to the bathroom for a long time, did they never show,’ that kind of stuff,” said Smith.

Whereas scheduled fire drills generally do not occur during third period, the alarm was triggered during C lunch, meaning students who were at lunch exited the building from the cafeteria. Smith said that in such a scenario, third-period teachers whose classes were at lunch during the emergency evacuation take student attendance following their return to class.

On the day of the unscheduled sounding of the fire alarm, Parker and Principal Samuel Wynkoop were both out of the building, which Smith said impacted their chain of command. Where Parker would usually signal that all is clear in an emergency drill scenario once students and staff had exited the building, it was left to the present administration and safety team to make a final call.

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