Starting in January 2025 and finishing in fall 2025, phase two — which is to convert the culinary classrooms in the K-building into two Science Labs — will start after the full completion of phase one and finish in fall 2025. This construction plan that began in the fall of 2022 included a major modernization of the administration office, cafeteria and exterior and interior dining halls. The A-building will house administration facilities, a nurse’s office, a multi-purpose room for teacher meetings and additional eating areas. The B-building will feature a Design Studio and classrooms and a kitchen for Culinary Arts.

With the new administration office’s “court- yard-like entrance”, Senior Construction Manager Mohammed Sedqi explains that its location was most suitable for parents’ and visitors’ way finding and staffs’ supervision.

“The best architecture is when you don’t need a sign saying ‘admin is there’. You want to just arrive at the parking lot and clearly know where it is,” he said. “The entrance is facing the parking lot, so it’s this new face to the school entrance that helps promote the sense of place at the school.”

The renovation work includes adding 8,000 square feet to the existing 12,000 square feet of building. During the process, the crew tackled challenges with remodeling an existing building, such as the absence of utilities lines
underground and older, incorrect spokes. Sedqi also said that potential setbacks in regulatory food space checkpoints will not be a major problem, ensuring a timely debut.

PAUSD Facilities & Construction Director Eric Holm describes that many tasks, including installations of electrical wiring, landscaping and planters, were allocated to start between the end of school and start of summer school to
prevent disruption during the school year. The construction team planned to repave the streets and repaint the main exit when summer school ended on July 19.

“We try to have the least amount of disturbance to students, so we use the summer to work outside of the fences of the building construction site,” he said. “So to connect the entire power of the buildings, we had to shut down the entire campus for three days.”

Sedqi expresses a similar sentiment.

“Because of the first winter storm that hit us hard, we had a challenging period with a mud pit in construction for months,” he said. “Otherwise, summer is when we make a lot of progress without things that hit a delay like interrupting school activity.”

Holm explains that unexpected changes and additions from the original plan range from environmental concern to improved technology.

“An example is that the contractor’s access to get things would end up damaging the trees because the building was too close, so we’ve made some modifications there,” he said. “We’ve also changed as a district. Gunn is one of our test cases for a new security system and camera system inside, so that all the doors are Access Reader on this building, and you won’t need any keys to get into the building.”

For future projects, Gunn may consider cross-laminated timber, a material built from sustainably harvested big wood lumber, as used in rebuilding Herbert Hoover Elementary School in March of 2024.

“The cool thing about mass timber, which is cross laminated timber, is it being the new zero carbon footprint technology,” Sedqi said. “It’s a really good direction, and if that is successful, that might be a prototype for future projects.”

For Sedqi, whose role in construction stemmed from a childhood of building Legos, he finds it rewarding to be able to connect with students and teachers, like food services and CTE Instructional Lead and culinary science teacher Cindy Peters, to execute campus facilities or that elevate each part of the community.

“I’m proud of the culinary classroom and kitchen because I have had a lot of meetings with Cindy. If you’ve been to her class, she’s been there for roughly 20 to 30 years and it’s outdated. So I like when she’s on site and says, ‘I’m happy about this. I want to teach here.’” he said. “It’s for her and for all the students. You’re gonna get some place that is
like cooking in a place that looks like a five star restaurant. It feels really good.”

While construction is continual with interior design efforts such as installing flooring, ceiling lights and kitchen equipment; painting the walls; and putting in attack panels, Assistant Principal of Facilities Dr. Mycal Hixon points out that the administration is focused on finding ways to better students’
environments and fulfill their needs.

“It allows us to continue to support students in the best, most efficient and safest way possible,” he said. “It finally allows for a cafeteria dining space during rainy day weather and is air conditioned for students to have lunch. That definitely means a lot for Gunn, while meeting all the measures and safety disciplines as best as administration
can.”

Started in fall 2022, the modernization effort includes a new administration office with a more prominent entrance and a food-services complex. The latter will house indoor and outdoor eating spaces and culinary arts classrooms alongside traditional food-services facilities. Both buildings are on track to be completed before the start of the 2024-25 school year.

Senior Construction Manager Mohammed Sedqi explained that contractors lost 1 1?2 months’ worth of work time due to last winter’s unusually heavy rains. Consequently, they had to work more intensely toward the end of the school year. “When March started and we had no rain, we were pushing for more people, more crews, more labor,” he said. “You had a team taking down the columns, (another) taking down the foundation. That overlap of so many activities made all that noise.”

As construction continues throughout this year, Sedqi hopes that the work will be less disruptive. The asphalt between the quad and E-building has been replaced with concrete, and fences will be pushed closer to the construction site, opening a corridor for students to walk to the southeastern portion of campus without cutting through the quad.

Looking ahead, Principal Wendy Stratton is working with new Assistant Principal Mycal Hixon, who will be overseeing construction, and Associated Student Body President Nathan Levy to make the process more transparent and accessible. Stratton believes student involvement is key, since students are important beneficiaries and the project was funded through taxpayer dollars. On his part, Levy has formed a new Student Executive Council committee that will attend construction meetings and share relevant updates in a new monthly newsletter.

Levy hopes that classes can take advantage of the ongoing work. “It could be a learning opportunity for a lot of different classes — one where they could take tours or learn more about the construction process,” he said. As an example, Levy pointed to how students in Advanced Placement Environmental Science classes could focus on the steps construction crews are taking to minimize damage to the environment and create greener buildings.

Sedqi also expressed a desire to work with students who are interested in architecture, construction or engineering. “I’ll be more than happy to get them involved in this — just to see the progress, how we are doing the work, what’s happening,” he said.

Other spots around campus have also been vandalized, according to Custodian Supervisor Luciano Hernandez. “It has been in the N building, the J building and the Village,” Hernandez said. “It has also been in the F wing where the lockers are.” There was graffiti on the side of the N building stairs on April 30, resulting in the area being closed off with caution tape to be repainted.

A trend of vandalism of this magnitude has so far been unheard of at Gunn. “There’s always been graffiti, but nothing really bad like this,” Hernandez said. “Nothing like this has happened in my 20 years of being here, not to this extreme.”

The graffiti has included negative messages directed at Gunn administrators and the Palo  Alto Unified School District (PAUSD) officials. “From what I read on the graffiti, it is targeting the admin, targeting the [school] board, maybe the board members,” Hernandez said.

Other than messages that were directed to the administration, the graffiti included a variety of drawings, jokes, poems and political statements, many of which were posted and circulated on students’ social media. In one message, students protested against the Social Emotional Learning and Functionality (SELF) program by writing on a bathroom stall, “Your SELF is just causing pain, this class is a bore, to you, I implore ditch SELF or we’ll all go insane.” Other messages have included pop culture references such as “Star Wars is better than Star Trek.” The vandalism has also addressed concerns presented by the school regarding vandalism, including a message that said, “So how are we hurting people? Explain and we might reconsider.” Another calls Palo Alto a bubble, and says graffiti is a way to “pop” it.

Sophomore Heather Aurora sees the graffiti as a form of protest. “Students are fed up with administration and they don’t have any other way to unleash their anger,” she said. “I know students who have tried talking to the administration and voicing their complaints and nothing ever really changes, so at this point people just resort to writing stuff on the bathroom walls.”According to Aurora, complaints have stemmed from discontent regarding teacher treatment toward different groups of people. “The administration is treating different groups of people differently,” she said. “In the environment here teachers will treat different students differently if they don’t have good grades regardless of what they really know about the student’s life.”

However, not all students support the vandals’ actions. “I’m kind of disappointed in Gunn students who have done the vandalism,” junior Drew Stanley said. “I think we can do a lot better and I’m disappointed that we’re destroying our campus and hurting our learning environment.”

Campus Supervisor Jorge Sanchez shares Stanley’s sentiment towards the vandalism. “I’m mostly sad that people want to vandalize our beautiful campus that we have here,”he said. Sanchez also feels that the steps taken by the vandals were not constructive and that there are better options for people in the vandals’ positions to voice their opinions.

The administration has recognized the discontent of students reflected in the vandalism. “All behavior is a form of communication and it’s really clear that there is probably a subsection of students that feel that their voice isn’t heard,” Assistant Principal Tara Keith said. “I think one thing that can be done differently is to allow for more student voice and choice, and we need to do a better job in hearing from a cross section of students throughout campus, not just in the office.”

The administration is trying to find the students responsible for the vandalism, but is having difficulty due to the lack of evidence. According to Laurence, some of the messages left by the vandals address this. “There is some taunting in there about ’you can’t catch me because you can’t have cameras in the bathroom,’” Laurence said. “We do have video of the area but it’s dependent upon [knowing] what time it was to actually make the video any kind of useful.” In one graffiti message left by a student on the bathroom wall, they taunt, “You know it’s illegal in the state of California to put cameras in the bathroom. How are you going to catch us?”

Punishment for vandalism can vary on a case-by-case basis. According to Keith, punishments can be doled out by going through the school or through the legal system. “If we are going to a route of going and pressing charges, then there will be some consequences through the police department and juvenile court,” Keith said. “In terms of consequences through the school, it would depend on the nature of the vandalism and the value of vandalism since we are driven by [education] code and want to be as restorative as possible.”

The administration is willing to hear student ideas on how graffiti can be prevented in the future. “I’m open to ideas,” Laurence said. “It’s really cool when you get the [student perspective] and the [adult perspective] together because then you got the really cool ideas and people who can say, ’Wow, that’s a great idea, let’s see how we can make it work.’ So I think partnering with the students is a really good way to resolve these kind of problems.”

As a short-term solution, Hernandez encourages students to keep a watchful eye on students participating in vandalism. “Everybody can help, even the students,” Hernandez said. “If they see somebody writing, they could help out the school, and that would be great.”

On March 19 and 20, a team of two researchers from the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC) will come to Gunn for a mid-cycle checkup of the six-year accreditation process. According to WASC, the purpose of the accreditation process is to assure the community that a school’s purpose is appropriate and being accomplished, and to provide valuable insight from the fellow educators that visit the school. The chairperson of the midpoint checkup in March will be Irvington High School math teacher Michelle Lau, who will be looking for progress on goals and areas of improvement established in 2015.

There are multiple parts to the mid-cycle preparation team. The administration, the Instructional Council, parents and students on Site Council and the Student Executive Council are currently working on collecting data and evidence from different departments. The information gathered will be compiled into reports for the visitors. Social studies teacher Tara Firenzi is a key member in the report-writing process, acting as a coordinator for all WASC-related activities.

When the visiting team arrives in March, they will check for progress based on their observations and evidence from the school’s report.

In past years, WASC has shown a dramatic shift in focus, moving from a teacher-oriented academic environment to a student-oriented one. During an accreditation training that Principal Kathleen Laurence attended, WASC emphasized that they weren’t just looking for a list of accomplishments. “What they’re saying now, because they’re student-centered, is that we want to see what you’ve done, but more than that we want to see evidence and that you to have analyzed that evidence to show how it’s impact student-learning,” Laurence said.

The three main goals that Gunn established in 2015 were to develop a culture that embraces multiple paths to success and promotes social-emotional well-being, increase achievement for historically underrepresented students and create a more efficient data collection system. Now, three years into the accreditation, Gunn is looking at how much progress have been made and what needs to be done in the next three years to reach their goals in 2021.

The WASC preparation teams are also looking at the aforementioned areas of improvement and assessing their relevance to the school. While Gunn has the option to strategically abandon one of the goals made in 2015 if they feel that it isn’t applicable anymore, Laurence sees that as an unlikely path. “It may be not so much that the goal is going to change, but how we’re going to get there is going to change,” she said.

To address the goal of creating a more efficient data collection system, teachers meet every Monday during their weekly collaboration time, where they compile data retrieved from student assessments and inspect the essential learning outcomes and targets. Reflecting WASC’s shift towards student-centered academic environments, teachers then evaluate whether students are doing well in their learning environment or not. Laurence noted how teachers are learning by teaching their students. “It’s kind of interesting because the professional learning communities are really about the teacher learning,” she said. “[They’re trying to make] changes in their behavior and instructional strategies that then impact student learning.”

Gunn is also concentrating efforts on increasing student voice, an area of improvement indicated by WASC in 2015. Laurence and Advanced Placement (AP) Statistics teachers Daisy Renazco and Rachel Congress saw the annual AP Statistics survey project as the perfect opportunity to tackle the goal of increasing student input. “This is a project that we’ve always done in statistics and I refined it to have it be what is it is now, which is about improving the school,” Renazco said.

The survey project’s focus was refined to reflect these overarching questions: “How can we develop a plan to improve the experience of Gunn High School students and how would you redesign the school to improve the experience of students?” Within this theme, students were free to pursue any niche they had interest in. Some students looked at balance of life, some at school lunches and others at the effect of parental pressure on students’ academic performance. Junior Nicholas Wong chose to focus his survey topic around the technology-oriented school that Gunn has become. “We did [the survey] based on electronics because technology is used a lot during school and we wanted to see if there could be improvements,” he said.

The completed project was presented on Dec. 7 in the library, and some of the data will go into the reports compiled for the WASC mid-cycle checkpoint. As a student, Wong sees this project as a good opportunity to further incorporate students into school processes. “[I felt] that it was a good way to get student input on things that could improve Gunn, since all groups had the ability to choose which topic they wanted to survey students on,” he said.

This project is just one of many different strategies taken to address the issue of lack of student input, and the opportunity to enrich student learning and improve the school simultaneously is one that Renazco cherishes. “Learning is more relevant when you can see why we learn what we learn,” she said. “This is why we learn statistics, and I hope to continue to make learning relevant for my students.”

The team of two researchers, upon concluding their visit, can return in a year’s time if they deem insufficient progress has been made in Gunn’s goals and areas of improvement. “We’ve done a lot of really good work here [in the past three years], and I would feel terrible if that happened, but I don’t think it will,” Laurence said.

On May 24, Principal Dr. Denise Herrmann announced her resignation from Gunn to take a position as Associate Superintendent for Instructional Services in the Fremont Unified School District.

Herrmann announced her resignation to students in a Schoology post, and explained her reasoning behind taking the job. “I feel that this is the right decision for my professional career and personal well-being,” she said. In an interview, she further clarified that it is “an amazing job opportunity [she has] at Fremont,” and that this was decision made “based on what’s the next really good opportunity for [her].” Her new position will oversee the educational instruction, student services, assessment and accountability and state and federal programs for all of the Fremont Unified School District.

In her first year at Gunn, Herrmann implemented a change in Gunn’s schedule, replacing the rotating schedule with a block schedule. Incoming School Board Representative junior Advait Arun expressed that this change was perhaps the “best thing she did for Gunn High School,” as it was very effective in alleviating student stress and workload after the three student suicides that had occurred the previous year. Similarly, Herrmann said that she felt like these changes resonated very well with students and parents at Gunn. “I probably had 500 kids who had come up to me and said ‘Dr. Herrmann, I was nervous about this, I didn’t think I was going to like it, but you were right. Thank you so much for giving us this new schedule,’” she said.   

Despite this positive outset, Herrmann has received substantial backlash from students this year for her decision to change the bell schedule for the third time in three years. Arun felt that Herrmann’s decisions to continue changing the schedule—despite student pushback—left students feeling unheard and dissatisfied. Some students speculated that this discontent heavily influenced her decision to leave. Herrmann, on the other hand, insists that these criticisms did not affect her decision. “I make my decisions on what’s best for me and my family ,” she said.

Herrmann hopes to carry her experiences as principal to Fremont, especially regarding students’ mental health. “What I’ve learned most is the importance of student well-being,” she said, “and how challenging that can be when students are so focused on college and academics.”

Moving forward, the selection process for a new principal will be carried out by a panel consisting of one Gunn administrator, five Gunn staff, three Gunn parents, and two students. The staff and student representatives of this panel will be chosen through a nomination process, while the Parent-Teacher Association (PTA) will be deciding on who the parent representatives will be.

Superintendent Max McGee emphasizes the importance of student voice in deciding the next principal. “I have yet to find a situation where I don’t listen to the primary stakeholders,” he said. “[Student] voice will matter as much as the parents’ and teachers’.”

In the first week of June, the panel will be able to question the candidates. The candidates will be applicants from inside the district who have already been vetted to make sure they fulfill the necessary qualifications. After the panel meets with the candidates, McGee will select one and the school board will have to approve it. The entire process will have been completed by the end of June.

Students and staff alike are mainly looking for a more transparent and communicative new principal. Arun thinks that these characteristics can be achieved if the new principal establishes personal connections with students. “Once you build a connection it becomes a whole lot easier to be transparent,” he said.

Arun hopes that, in the near future, the Student Executive Council (SEC) will be more useful in channeling student voice to improve communication with the administration. “As long as the students of Gunn can hold their own representatives accountable, I feel like SEC has the chance to become not just a place where events are planned, but a place where student opinion is distilled, debated upon, discussed, and ultimately acted upon through concrete policy and work with the administration,” he said.

Herrmann said that, although she looks forward to her new position in Fremont, she will miss Gunn. “Although it’s hard to say goodbye to the parents and adults,” she wrote in her Schoology message, “the hardest part of leaving is saying goodbye to you—the students.”

When administration was first made aware that students sitting next to each other recieved the same versions of the exam, they made the most pragmatic decision at the time to self-report the incident. However, the issue should not have reached a point where this was necessary in the first place. The proctors of the AP exams were responsible for ensuring that all protocols and rules were properly enforced, including those of test distribution. Therefore, negligence on the part of the proctors contributed significantly to the root of the issue. Had they been more cautious and cognizant when distributing the various test versions, this situation might not have unfolded as abruptly as it did.

Still, administration played an equal, if not more severe, part in the process as well. It is evident that both proctors and administration were aware that students were required to sit five feet apart from each other, as they continually reminded students to sit as far apart from each other as possible. Although admin has cited that Gunn has been using the same seating arrangements and logistics for AP testing for the past several years, that does not excuse them from having continually violated College Board regulations. The school should not have waited until something of this caliber happened; rather, this issue should have been dealt with and resolved as soon as it was recognized.

This past week, a petition that originally called for the annulment of all final assignments and projects from classes that require retaking the AP exam garnered over 1,300 signatures from students, parents and alumni. Later, an update was made to the petition stating that students should be exempt from final assignments should they choose to do so. The Gunn community is clearly worried and angry about the extra work students will need to take on. However, to call for the annulment of all final work from a class gives partiality to certain students, leaving those students who could use the final assignments as a buffer for their grade without any other options. Students who have already started working on their projects will also have their hard work go to waste if this system is implemented. Thus, it would be in the student body’s best interest to talk directly with teachers to work out a plan for final assignments that is suited to their needs. Several meetings have already occurred between administration, students and teachers, and administration has communicated that teachers are to remain flexible and open to options with students as the process of retakes continues. Therefore, by talking with teachers directly to work out a plan, students who require measures to alleviate stress can have their needs met without affecting the entire student population.

Furthermore, statements or calls to fire administration—whether formally or informally—only due to this situation are not justified. While students have a right to be angry and voice their opinions about the failures of the administration that resulted in the invalidation of scores, they should do so within reason. At this point in the year, it is more constructive to offer recommendations for how administration can improve the retake processes rather than calling for them to be fired. Because this is a problem that is likely to not happen again, firing administration would not solve the problem, and would therefore stagnate the issue rather than resolve it.

The rescheduling and retaking of AP exams is ultimately a double-edged sword. On one hand, administration will have learned their lesson and future generations will probably not have to deal with a problem of this caliber again. However, for the current set of students taking AP exams, the disadvantages run deep. Current students bear a huge weight on their shoulders as they add another burden onto their already aching backs, and several seniors will be leaving campus with the bitter thoughts of AP exams still looming over their heads. But after stepping back and looking at the whole picture, the issue is not nearly as detrimental as it seems in the grand scheme of things. It is just as vital to address a situation as it is to move on from it, which is what students need to do now. The administration will need to continue to improve its practices and be held accountable, and students will continue to fight to ensure that this happens, as they should. With time, wounds always heal, and as Titans always do in the face of adversity, we can at least be assured that we will come out of this situation more resilient and improved than we were before.

—Unsigned editorials represent the majority opinion of the staff (assenting: 27; dissenting: 5; abstaining: 0).

This article previously stated that a petition called for the annulment of all final assignments and projects. The article has been edited to reflect an update of the petition, which states that a student can choose whether or not to be exempt from final assignments.

On Tuesday, May 17, Principal Dr. Denise Herrmann announced that students will have to retake several of the Advanced Placement (AP) tests within the next two weeks because of irregularities in the seating and protocol errors that occurred during the testing periods. All students are required to retake the AP Biology exam, 56 of 111 students will have to retake the AP Calculus BC exam and the number of students affected is still under investigation for AP Environmental Science, AP Physics C: Mechanics and AP Physics C: Electricity and Magnetism. AP Chemistry, Computer Science A, Spanish Language and Culture, Physics 1, English Literature and Composition and Psychology exams are currently under review by the College Board for possible invalidation as well. Retakes are currently scheduled to begin this Thursday and continue next week. According to Herrmann, the testing irregularity was first brought to attention by a mix-up in testing distribution during the AP BC Calculus exam. Students were seated next to each other and were supposed to be given either version Q or R of the exam so that no two students seated together had the same version. However, due to logistical errors, some students seated together were given the same version of the exam. “As soon as we discovered that the proctors had distributed the tests in a way that would put a Q and a Q together, we knew ethically we would have to self-report that [and] we knew that College Board would also have to receive those materials as soon as they saw the seating chart,” Herrmann said. “It was also something that they would have caught later on, and it would be much more difficult for students to make it up over the summer, so we wanted to report it.” Tis irregularity prompted a request from the College Board for more information about Gunn’s testing environment. Te administration was asked to send detailed information about the setup of the testing environment, which revealed that students who were seated two per table were sitting too close together.

According to Herrmann, Gunn has been using the same testing tables, seating arrangements and testing protocols for the past several years. However, this was the first year that the issue was brought to their attention. Therefore, she believes the problem stems from the administration not questioning the testing methods that have been used for the past 12 years. “Te culture at Gunn reinforces doing things the same way that we’ve always done them,” she said. Tis incident has evoked a myriad of student responses and backlash about administrative processes. “[On] one hand I do feel a little upset that the administration did not catch this beforehand, but on the other side we’ve been testing this way for so many years and for [the administration] to finally have the courage to tell College Board that we’ve been doing it wrong is admirable,” junior Isha Gupta said. Student Body Vice President Cole McFaul had a similar response. “I think a lot of people are angry with good reason because we’ve reached this peak and now we have to recover,” he said. “Tat pressure has really been felt by the student body, and we’re going to feel it as the AP retakes are coming in.” A petition created by senior Emily Cao is circulating around social media calling for the annulment of all end-of-the-year AP classwork and projects so as to minimize the added stress students will face. “I feel it would be in [the administration’s] best responsibility to give us time during class for studying and preparing for the test that they were incompetent of proctoring,” Cao said. However, some students feel that establishing a school-wide policy is unrealistic. According to junior Elise Epstein, the varying paces of different classes makes it hard to implement a school-wide policy. “I think the key is flexibility, I definitely see how the petitions are trying to make it less stressful for the students, so what I think can be done is have the AP teachers be more flexible as a whole and just have each teacher do their part of what they can to make it less stressful,” Epstein said. Gupta mirrors Epstein’s view that overly extreme measures are not needed. “I think it’s normal for students to be upset and angry and disappointed, [and] I definitely think that accommodations are needed to reduce stress,” she said. “However, I don’t think a petition to cancel all final assessments is the right way to go. I think it’s a bit over-reactionary.” Epstein believes that overall, the administration is trying their best to cope with the problem. “I think, so far, they are doing a good job with handling the situation,” Epstein said. “It’s not the administration’s fault, and I think it’s good that they’re calling all of the teachers together, that they are getting student’s opinions,”. Other students, however, feel that their voices are not being heard. Te Palo Alto Student Union is planning a sit-in during the next school board meeting on Tuesday, May 24, to bring awareness of the issue to the district and encourage the administration to give leniency to affected students on final projects and tests. Te administration is working to ensure that retakes go of without problems. According to Herrmann, students will not have to pay to retake the tests and students who choose not to retake the test will receive a full refund. In addition, the administration will take care of redistributing and reissuing any student booklets. One of the biggest issues that students and staff are facing right now is how students will study for the additional AP exams along with other tests and projects. “What I feel is the most important thing that we should be focusing on is supporting the students as we go through the retesting process,” Herrmann said. “I know from receiving some emails from parents and students that that’s what they want, too.” In a meeting with the Student Executive Council (SEC), Herrmann stated that a list of all affected students would be released to teachers. Teachers were open to being flexible and working with students impacted by the AP retakes on a case-by-case basis. Herrmann has complete faith in the teachers and their ability to manage the situation. “I believe in the good spirit of our teachers, and that they together are going to be able to figure out a way that students feel that we are taking into account that we want them to be academically successful, but also [maintain] their well-being,” she said.

Following changes in federal school safety recommendations, Gunn administration has changed certain aspects of its Code Red practices. The changes will be announced at the Dec. 9 staff meeting and are a response to new data and information available from both federal and school sources about how teachers and students should respond during a Code Red alarm, with most focusing on safety tactics as well as improved communication with police.

“The Code Red changes are much more about practices and what we’re going to be teaching and reinforcing with our staff and students,” Principal Dr. Denise Herrmann said. According to Herrmann, the basic idea behind Code Red actions has not changed. “In general, the overall policy is similar in that once we know that we have an intruder on campus or something, then that would force us to go into Code Red,” she said.

Earlier this year, the school ran a baseline Code Red drill to evaluate how each classroom responds to a Code Red alarm. Herrmann worked with a team of analysts to collect data from the drill. “We went and checked every classroom, so [the data] was how many classrooms were barricaded, how many were silent, if there were anywhere you could see kids moving,” Herrmann said. “It’s more of a performance-based kind. In this kind of situation, it’s not on what you know as much as it is on what you do.”

Herrmann found that many of the Code Red routines teachers had learned were ineffective.

In an emergency, she discovered, adults and students alike did not follow through with many of the practices they’d been taught beforehand simply because those practices were often too intricate to carry out. “Earlier five years ago, some of the kinds of recommendations we were making were sort of complicated,” Herrmann said. “[They] just weren’t intuitive.”

In response to the collected data, Gunn administration began to change the way it advises its teachers. “We thought that if we gave really clear directions and if people followed the directions, then they’d be safe,” Herrmann said. “What they found is that there is no one right way.” Instead of giving teachers specific, limited rules for Code Red execution, Herrmann hopes to show different possible safety options—for example, varying ways to organize a classroom. By promoting flexibility, she hopes to increase safety for all. “Let’s teach different ways to barricade,” Herrmann said.

Assistant Principal Miriam Stevenson agrees. “The best place to go or how to respond is situational dependent,” she said. “While getting into a classroom and barricading is part of the drill to prepare, in a real situation that may not be an option or the safest choice. Our choices would depend on how close we are to what is occurring at the time as well as our individual abilities to respond.”

Another major change in Code Red practices is the heavier involvement of police, both during a drill and in a real emergency. Gunn administration is currently making efforts to work more closely with law enforcement to ensure maximum campus security. “In a real emergency, law enforcement is trained to respond directly to any disturbance,” Stevenson said. Stevenson believes changes to Code Red practices will strongly impact the way students and teachers are taught about responding to emergencies. “I think it will provide more flexibility in our thinking and preparations,” she said. “It can be helpful to consider how we might respond and how that might be different based on where we are on campus, the features of the building, area or classroom.”

Revisions to Code Red practices were influenced by changes in federal suggestions. The U.S. Department of Education stated in its K-12 Emergency Response Guidelines that students and staff may need more than one option in a Code Red situation. It stresses the importance of giving teachers and students certain freedoms during a crisis: “While they should follow the plan and any instructions given during an incident, often they will have to rely on their own judgment to decide which option will best protect lives.”

The International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) makes similar suggestions. Teachers should make decisions about lockdown or evacuation on their own in life-threatening situations, as specified in the school crisis management plan written by the IACP Guide to Preventing and Responding to School Violence.

Herrmann believes the new Code Red policies will lead to positive results. “They empower teachers and students to make good decisions within a set of boundaries,” she said.