Since returning to campus from online learning back in 2021, students have noticed a glaring–and blaring–trend at La Jolla High: False fire alarms. Put bluntly by Junior James Fricovsky, “It’s crazy that we go to a school where the fire alarms go off and no one moves.” The majority of students have recognized a shared attitude among teachers, which is to assume that unless told otherwise, there is nothing to be concerned about, rather than to immediately evacuate. This Boy Who Cried Wolf situation poses a serious threat to La Jolla High, because as fire alarms become fundamentally futile, students and teachers are being set up for potential danger. 

There are several reasons why the fire alarms go off, and historically, they haven’t been fires. Malfunctioning issues and kids pulling the fire alarms have made false alarms a weekly occurrence, one that disrupts classes three separate times: the initial alarm, investigation report, and all clear. Due to how often they occur, these alarms are widely considered as non-threatening at La Jolla High, when their sole function is to expose threats to the safety of everyone on campus. 

Junior Benji Myers explained, “One time during my freshman year, the fire alarm went off 4 times in one day, and not once did a teacher consider evacuating. It’s a problem, and if a fire were to actually occur, we probably wouldn’t know.” This issue has persisted across all four classes of students currently at La Jolla High, and there is no doubt that false alarms serve to distract students during classwork, lectures, and tests.

As Mrs. Savoia puts best, the situation is not only disruptive, but also “dangerous, because we don’t take fire alarms going off seriously anymore.” Clearly, steps towards improving the school environment need to be taken. Only through collective action from the administration, to fix the malfunctioning alarms, and students, to stop crying wolf, will La Jolla High be able to fully avoid the potential disasters of this children’s fable.