Recently Rangeview High School’s fire alarms have been randomly set off, causing classes to be disrupted for extended periods of time.
According to an email sent out by Principal Lisa Grosz, the alarms have been going off because of a faulty sensor in one of the boy’s bathrooms.
Ayon Hammond, a Junior, stated that some students suspect that the detectors in the bathrooms have been detecting vape smoke, which then sets off the fire alarm.
Ultimately, these alarms have been interrupting classes and taking up Rangeview staff and student’s valuable time. They have gone off three times this week alone; one went off on Tuesday, December 5th during 6th period, and two went off the following day in the middle of 1st and 4th period/B Lunch.
Rangeview teacher Auston Brecht stated that one of the alarms went off when his class was doing district mandated Illuminate Testing. “Now we have to push it to take longer which just disrupts class time even more, especially being as close to finals as we are,” Brecht stated. He also added that “it’s taking students’ opportunities away to get class work done that they need to.”
While the sensor is still broken, the plan is for Rangeview admin to go on the intercom within 30 seconds of the fire alarm going off. Depending on whether it’s an actual emergency or a mistake, they will instruct teachers to lead their classes outside or stay in their classrooms and ignore the alarm until they can turn it off.
According to the email sent out by Principal Grosz, Rangeview School Resource Officer Mike Dziurgot has been in communication with the Aurora Fire Department so that fire trucks aren’t repeatedly sent to the school.
Aurora Public Schools have looked at the sensor and will hopefully resolve the issue soon.
