Safety Drills conducted Year Round in SDOC

Everyone probably remembers doing tornado drills when they were in school. Well, safety drills like those are conducted year round in the School District of Oconee County (SDOC), explains Associate Superintendent of Administration Steve Hanvey. “Six drills are mandated through state statute. We still have to do our monthly fire drills on top of that. So, two fire drills, tornado drill, earthquake drill and we also have to do two Code Red or intruder drills. One that the school does on its own and most of our schools have done those as far as practice goes in just making sure that everybody knows what they do; get in the corner, away from the windows, lock the doors and those kind of things. Then we will have a Code Red later on in the school year that will be initiated by the school district. The SROs will do a scenario and the school will respond. We video that and review it with the school, staff and administration to make sure if there are things we can do to improve that system within each individual school. We are required to have those and we still have the typical tornado drill. We have added the earthquake drill too where you get under the desk and make sure you are trying to protect yourself. That along with the typical fire drills and now what is very common everywhere the intruder drills or as we call them Code Red drills.” These safety drills also teach students, teachers and staff what to do in the event of a weather or other type of emergency.