Photo Credit: Nathaniel Skinner

Student pulling the fire alarm (posed).

It was a disgraced Mr. McBlair that walked back into his room, head hung, shuffling his feet – a victim of the first false fire alarm of the 08-09 school year.  A few moments before, as the lights flashed and the shrill bells of the fire alarm rang, he had calmly, professionally, and fruitlessly attempted to evacuate his students. John McBlair, a brand new teacher that year, was sadly unaware of the frequency of the classic M-A “false alarm,” much to the hilarity of his students.   The truth is, the rather un-alarming fire alarm at M-A has lost its luster, and one day it might be more than just our ears that suffer.

Common belief is that any false alarm is the work of a mischievous student.  When asked, many M-A students will admit to knowing someone who has pulled the alarm, or even proudly confess to having committed the crime themselves.  One senior explains how it is his “goal to pull the alarm before leaving M-A.”

“I pulled it by accident,” describes senior Louis McCabe.  “Sophomore year my backpack somehow got caught on the fire alarm and as I walked out it got pulled down so I quickly vacated the scene.”

An M-A grad describes her own experience with the fire alarm, saying how it had “always been [her] lifelong dream” and that she employed the use of two others to “serve as massive human shields” while she pulled it.

Another M-A grad mentions that he once had a teacher assist him in pulling the alarm.  “He opened it for me, let me rip off the tape, and yank the alarm,” says the former student.   “I ran off and like 10 seconds later admin ran up and [the teacher] just shrugs.”

However, students are not nearly as much at fault for false alarms as most people think. While students have been known to pull the alarm, these occurrences only account for about 30% of alarms heard at M-A.

“Two times out of three, it tends to be… a smoke detector malfunctioning,” explains Principal Zito. “Four different things trigger them. One is that there is actually a fire on campus… The other way it happens is that the smoke detectors… get dust in them.”

Among other causes are fire extinguisher foam (ironically), fog machines, and, of course, chemistry teachers.

“Mrs. Nersesian set it off because she was grilling a sausage,” Zito recalls. In general, “[chem. teachers] set them off three or four times a year.”

Another reason for the alarm’s frequent presence is the sensitivity of the system itself.

“It’s… like a huge octopus,” says Zito, gesturing to the motherboard of all circuit panels, hidden away in a closet filled with wires.  “If it can’t communicate with all those devices [smoke detectors, heat detectors, pull stations, etc], it goes off.”

With such a responsive system, M-A truly has a “fail-safe mechanism,” of which Zito is justly proud. The entire alarm system, including devices and the connective wiring, has cost the school around $850,000, a cost that increases with every modernization. Zito “[doesn’t] know if we’re up to $100 million, but we will [be] soon.”

Captain Dan Coyle of the Menlo Park Fire Protection takes the false alarms far more seriously than the students.  “False alarms desensitize you to it,” he explains.  “If you repeatedly report an emergency when there isn’t one, we will take it less seriously.”

“The main thing,” he says, “is that its pulling resources away from people who actually need help.”

On the administrative end, Dean of Students Sean Priest confirms that “students caught pulling a false alarm not only face consequences from the school but also potential criminal charges.”

When asked about what some consider an unofficial M-A tradition, Priest replied “M-A students strike me as far too sophisticated and thoughtful to endorse a tradition as facile as pulling fire alarms for fun.”

“It doesn’t strike me as a tradition worthy of the M-A students I’ve gotten to know over the last year,” says Priest.