Safety product: Todd’s Fire Drill

Hi,

If you trust a school to educate your children and to house them you wouldn’t want to worry about fire in the dormitories of colleges and boarding school. 

Statistics for US schools (U.S. Fire Administration National Fire Data Center, 2007) reveal that there were no reported school related fire deaths for the year 2006-2007.  Why is this?  Why is it that Canada and European schools have similar statistics?  It is because of the government enforced fire safety policies that are strictly monitored.  Fire drills are required at least once a month.  Fire evacuation routes have to be posted.  In most schools there is a required sprinkler system, or fire escape.  The report quoted above credits the fire drills as the largest contributing factor to the safety of the students in schools.  Yet, when there is a school related fire death reported, they tend to be in boarding schools in these countries.  Why?  The answer unfortunately is simple.  The one thing that happens in a boarding school that does not happen in a regular school is that students sleep in their own beds.  Sleeping is the only listed contributing factor to school related fire deaths in these countries.

School inspections include examinations into fire safety in these countries.  In most cases those reports are also available online.  Past concerns are also reviewed and examined in these reports.  Even schools in Korea have stringent rules on fire safety (Korea International School, 2007).

Yet, there are still many schools in Africa, Asia and, South America, where state required inspections do not exist or are not as strict have had large death tolls related to boarding school fires.  On April 15th 2008, a fire ripped through a dormitory in Buddo Junior Primary School, a boarding school in Uganda.  Nineteen girls as young as 12 and two adults were killed (OLUKYA, 2008).  On March 26, 2001 a fire killed 59 boys at the Kyanguli Secondary School in Machakos, a boarding school out (Associated Press, 2002).  In both cases there were serious fire hazards.  Doors were locked.  Windows were barred.  Government monitoring was lax.  The living condition in both cases was poor.

When you look at a boarding school no matter what country, visit the dorm!  Talk to the students, ask questions about fire drills.  Ask the students if they are ever awakened by one.  Its one thing to send your little one to a school known for its academics, its another thing to send your child someplace to live without first visiting the place and people you will trust to care for your child.  Kenya and Uganda are only a few of such places that have had fires with deadly results.

The US Fire Administration (2007) reports that hotels, boarding houses and boarding schools are susceptible to higher incidences of fire because of carelessness, smoking, candles, and simple ordinary home life activities that are not appropriate for a boarding/hotel type atmosphere.  Cooking in electric appliances such as toaster ovens or electric plates, discarding flammable materials such as cigarettes, storing towels and sheets where cleaning supplies are kept are just a few of the things that lead to fires in boarding schools. 

Safety Tip: Remember, if you want your child to be safe in a boarding school, visit the school, ask students questions, and check out the school’s last inspection.  These two tasks will protect your children in their home away from home. 

Do you have a concern or experience related to this article?  If so, leave a comment and share your concerns with others. 

Safe living, Yovette Mumford

Hi,

Last week, we witnessed the great Oprah begging for forgiveness, her eyes filled with tears of frustration and disappointment, for her school having been a place of violence and abuse on the students. One of the students at the school had been fondled, and another had been assaulted. Who did it?

News about violence and sexual harassment in our schools always – or, should – arouse a sense of anger and indignation. After all, we are in the twenty-first century, are we not? Why are we still kids being assaulted? Why are our children still being sexually molested? To have a child violently killed or raped anywhere in our cities and towns is reprehensible enough. But to allow the same things to happen in our schools is the most heinous indictment of our humanity’s lack of mental health.

Safety Issues has written about sexual misconduct in our schools, Sexual Misconduct Menaces US Schools. A report mandated by Congress found that up to 9 percent (4.5 million students) out of the country’s 50 million students at one time or another suffer sexual misconduct at the hands of a school employee. That’s a lot of students.

And what have the schools done about these? They’ve swept the problem under the rug. Other have “passed the trash,” meaning, they quietly ask the teacher to leave and transfer to another school, which leaves the wrongdoer free to prey on children in other schools. The sad reality is these wrongdoers rarely repent; they are likely to strike again.

And what has Congress done about that report? We still have to see. Our lawmakers are squeamish about legislating state punishments or a cohesive national policy.

It seems the time has come to have mental health experts, sociologists, government officials, and security experts devise and implement plans to address these issues. As we have so painfully witnessed, the present ways just do not work! And we cannot, for our children’s sake, let things remain that way.

• In most sexual misconduct cases, when a student brings up a case against a teacher or school official, the authorities are more likely to believe the authority figure rather than the child. When defendants portray the students who accuse them as seducers or false accusers, school authorities often believe – or want to believe – them.

This mindset has got to stop. Any experienced investigator will say it happens very rarely that a teacher is being pursued by a student. Instead, it happens all too often that teachers are doing the pursuing. Officials should remember it is never easy for a student to speak up about what is happening, so if someone does, the officials should give the complainant a fair hearing. This is a challenge to school officials everywhere.

• School officials should follow the law: many states require that even an allegation of sexual misconduct should be reported to the state office overseeing teacher licenses. Many school officials do not make this report.

• School and state officials should use the resources of the National Association of State Directors of Teacher Education and Certification. This organization maintains a list of educators who have been punished for various reasons. It will share names only with state agencies.

• State officials should require thorough background checks on teachers and enforce mandatory reporting of abuse.

Rogue teachers will continue their predatory ways unless we do something about them. Let us help each other do so.

Please, I invite and encourage your comments on this issue. I want to hear from you. We are built around one mission, to inform you, listen to you and encourage your awareness of critical safety issues.

Since life has no reset button…tune into this blog and to our website daily. Safe living, Yovette Mumford

Hi,

What is it going to take for the government and leaders of this great country to truly carry out the roles that, we, the people, put them in office to do; protect us, inform us, educate us and most importantly be honest with us? We now have another health crisis among us, a bacterial infection that since the last two years and continuing has killed more people in the United States than the HIV virus, emphysema and murder. If you ask 1 in 10 people if they know what it is, you will get “no”, as an answer. Does this not anger you? Should we as a people that live in a democracy not expect the government to warn of these health issues before they become crises? How many more people, particularly the elderly and children that are dying at the highest percentage due to this infection, have to die? Please send us your comments by simply clicking the “comment” button below. We want to hear from you!

Additionally, in respect to our commitment to offering you as much as we can about safety, we have posted an article on our site that has important statistical and scientific information about MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphyloccus aureus). Click here to read it: Bacterial Infection More Deadly than AIDS.

The purpose of this blog will be more to directly address and initiate your comments about school safety in the aftermath of another child dying due to this infection.

On October 17, 2007, Ashton Bond, a senior high school student in Virginia died of MRSA. The Superintendent of Bedford County, the county in Virginia which housed the school Ashton attended, immediately closed all 21 schools within the county. Was it a little bit too late? Clearly for Ashton it was. Why, because MRSA is a cleanliness issue. Why did the superintendent close down the schools? To have a commercial cleaning company come into each school in the county and “clean it.” Are you kidding me? Does not our taxpayer money pay for a school cleaning staff at every school in the nation? Let me answer that for you, yes.

Most importantly, where does this leave the safety of our children in school? According to The Associated Press:
“Staph infections, including the serious MRSA strain, have spread through schools nationwide in recent weeks, according to health and education officials. Several students have been hospitalized. At least three MRSA cases have been reported in Bedford. Many of the infections are being spread in gyms and locker rooms, where athletes, perhaps suffering from cuts or abrasions, share sports equipment.”

Guess what readers, Ashton, 17, played football last year but was not playing this season.

As parents, relatives and friends of children in schools, what can we do to help prevent MRSA coming into contact with our children? Educate them, as the vast majority of school districts have done across the country. Tell them to wash their hands, provide them with pocket size instant hand disinfectant, requiring no water; that they can carry in their pocket with them to school. Don’t rely on the cleaning crew of your child’s school. The infection is currently too widespread to not take action as a parent or guardian of a child in school.

Maybe we can trust our school districts to change the errors that caused this from ever occurring in the first place, but maybe we can’t. For your child’s safety, provide them with the tools they need to keep their hands clean, any open wounds covered and their clothes clean. We are here for your safety and urge you to be there as well.

Since life has no reset button…tune into this blog and to our website daily. Safe living, Yovette Mumford