By: Tianyou Lee, Staff Writer

On Jan. 14 at 11:02 a.m., Ronan Gensel (10) should’ve been in the middle of a lesson about drug concentrations in his third period biotechnology class. Instead, he and the rest of Mills’ students were leaving their classrooms to evacuate to the field — the necessary protocol for the fire alarm going off.

Gensel wasn’t exactly worried, however. “It’s come to the point where, because it happens so frequently and so often, I think myself and lots of others surely are sort of desensitized to the whole thing,” he says. And for good reason: he had just been through another evacuation the day before when after school, the alarms had been triggered while he was attending robotics.

“And now, whenever it goes off, we’re like, ‘Oh, here we go again. Someone’s vaping, or someone’s making popcorn,’ and then we just get up and go,” Gensel says.

The Jan. 14 evacuation wouldn’t even be the last one of the month. A week later on Jan. 21, Gensel would have to evacuate again at 12:23 p.m. due to the alarms going off once more.

No fires had occurred any of the days. Investigations from admin have revealed the cause for the first two incidents: vaping in the school bathrooms.

Since the implementation of new, more sensitive smoke detectors at Mills, frequent fire evacuations in December and January have been caused by non-smoke triggers like vaping. In addition to thirty-minute disruptions from class, the incidents have cumulatively racked up thousands of dollars in fees for Mills from calling the fire department. 

Admin is currently looking at how best to approach the situation, especially placing emphasis on tackling vaping. Charging the fines to students and increased monitoring of the bathrooms are being considered.

Back in December 2020, the SMUHSD Board approved a district-wide plan to replace their decades-old fire alarm system. At Mills, its implementation began three years later in May 2024 and continued early on into the 2024–2025 school year.

The new alarm system is equipped with a repeating automated voice system, as opposed to the old classic ringing, and flashing lights for center court. When triggered, it automatically messages a central monitoring station, which then notifies the local fire department to send firefighters to Mills. A $1,500 fee is billed to the school each time for using the fire department’s services.

As for how the system is notified of a fire, locations in the school are equipped with either heat detectors or smoke detectors. The smoke sensors specifically are more precise than the previous ones, yet they don’t just detect smoke better: they also pick up on other substances in the air, like the vapor from vapes, and are unable to distinguish between them and smoke, setting off the alarms regardless.

Since the new system was implemented, the fire alarms have gone off on Dec. 4 during lunch, Dec. 13 during fourth period, Jan. 13 shortly after school, Jan. 14 during third period, and Jan. 21 close to the start of fifth period. After each evacuation, Mills was able to conduct investigations to determine their causes, made easier by the alarm system showing at which times and locations the smoke detectors went off and the corresponding security camera footage.

According to Assistant Principal Fred Wolfgramm, who was recently placed in charge of managing the fire alarm incidents, the Jan. 13 alarm was set off in the 200 girls’ restroom, while the Jan. 14 alarm was set off in the 200 boys’ restroom. By Jan. 14, admin had concluded that the triggers for both were vaping and identified the students responsible. 

“We spent all afternoon dealing with that situation,” Wolfgramm says. “That’s why we were unable to be outside after the evacuation because we were busy going through surveillance, checking the cameras, and bringing in students.”

Dean Tim Christian also confirmed that the Jan. 21 alarm was triggered in the 200 boys’ bathroom, although admin was unable to determine the exact cause from their investigation.

The students who set off the Jan. 13 and 14 alarms received the appropriate consequences by Jan. 14. Wolfgramm did not explicitly disclose what those were, but he did share the potential repercussions for triggering the alarm.

“There are the district class of programs, the programs that they offer for vape use,” Wolfgramm says, referring to intervention measures, “but there’s also the suspension piece that can go along with it. It’s a serious matter. So if it’s impacting the whole school, you’re looking at at least three days, possibly five, if it’s a repeat.”

Making students who set off the alarms pay for the $1,500 fire department fee is “a potential consequence,” as Wolfgramm says, but something that has yet to be imposed. Signs have been posted on the bathroom doors warning “[i]ndividuals who [v]ape” that they will be “responsible for all costs” if the fire alarm is set off.

Christian has additionally noted that “things are fluid” when deciding on the appropriate actions. “I don’t treat everybody the same, so I treat everybody for what they need,” he says.

Some students do think a more severe punishment could be a benefit. Gensel is one of them. 

“You know, you should not be smoking, period, but you should not be smoking at school, in the bathroom. It just wastes everybody’s time,” he says. “I think it’s irresponsible and disrespectful to the teachers and your fellow student body to do something like that, and maybe there should be stricter or harsher consequences for behavior like that.”

Kayli Tsang (11), whose third period precalculus class got interrupted by the Jan. 14 alarm, is of a similar opinion. “I was actually pretty annoyed that it was wasting class time and pushed our work back,” Tsang remembers. “We had to do work outside of school when we could have done it during class.” She agrees that suspensions and fees “should be implemented.”

Apart from the frequent fire evacuations, the new system is experiencing other teething troubles. Christian mentioned an incident prior to winter break when the sensors had been set off in the front office above Administrative Assistant Alana Tipton’s desk for supposedly no reason. On Jan. 14 and Jan. 21, the fire alarms had only sounded in select locations like the 200 wing, leaving out certain halls and requiring a speaker announcement for a schoolwide evacuation notice. Wolfgramm explains that the discrepancy was due to a lack of connection between the smoke sensor system and the heat sensor system. Buildings equipped with only heat sensors did not hear the alarm.

With these technical difficulties in mind, admin still places emphasis on curbing the vaping in the school bathrooms. Mitigation of the “congregating” or “chatting” happening inside them is a key part of their plan, according to Wolfgramm.

“If we see students [talking] in the restrooms,” he says, “we want to kind of clear them out and say, ‘Hey, you have all this space outside to be able to have those conversations.’”

Principal Pamela Duszynski believes that the fire alarm incidents will shift Mills’ priorities back to tackling vaping as a more general problem. “We know historically, when vapes first came out, they really hit our kids hard. … Then we had COVID and distance learning,” she says. “And now that we have a new fire alarm system, and we’re connecting many of the alarms to vapes, now [vaping is] kind of emerging again as a focus.”

Duszynski emphasizes the health ramifications of vaping as well.

“They’re nicotine. I don’t even think the research shows us what the damage does to the human body over time,” she says. “If you have a friend that you know that vapes, whether they got caught doing it in our restrooms or not, you need to talk with them about their health and well-being. Please. We know that friends listen to friends more than they listen to adults sometimes.”