The ORIGINAL 1000+ Posts Club

[Front-Ranger]

Oh, I forgot to report back. Thanks everybody for your kind words.
He enjoyed the zoo very much, and he didn't miss the "zoo-school", a special educational program by the zoo staff for kids at various ages. He even got to pet a baby Fennek and was totally over the moon about it!
He was glowing when he came home and I felt all right again.

That is great to hear!! Now, you might want to think about getting yourself a big bulletin board like the one you might have recalled seeing in our house. Our refrigerator, even though it's a Sub-Zero, is not big enuff for all the school reminders, etc. that need to go there!!

CONGRATULATIONS TO ROUXB & MONIKA ON REACHING THE BIG 2000!!

[southendmd]

Congrats to Monika on 2,000 Jakelicious posts!

[Penthesilea]

That is great to hear!! Now, you might want to think about getting yourself a big bulletin board like the one you might have recalled seeing in our house. Our refrigerator, even though it's a Sub-Zero, is not big enuff for all the school reminders, etc. that need to go there!!

We do have one of those big calendars with different columns for every family member, but I don't use it (hubby does). I go with my alamac. But it's gone for over a week now. It must be in the house somewhere, but I can't find it . It IS a GBOAUS, I really need it.

[Penthesilea]

OMG

The school of my oldest daughter had a bomb threat yesterday - and she didn't know anything about it and stayed in school. To take the suspense out: it was only a monkeyshine (?), there was no bomb.

They had a Project Week the last week and yesterday evening they had a big festivity where they presented their projects. At 6:10pm the principal made an emergency call to the police, and shortly before 6:30pm they began to evacuate the school. The principal decided not to do an announcement via the loudspeaker-system, but to rely on mouth-to-mouth information, in order to avoid a panic (the school was jam-packed with almost 2000 people because of the festivity).
My daughter left the school shortly after seven, only because she had a ride with her aunt (the festivity was planned to last until 9pm). Her group had noticed that barely anybody was coming to see their project anymore, but didn't know why. Then she and her aunt wondered about the many people and police cars in front of the school. But only this morning we learned what happened from the newspaper.

While I think it was a good idea to start the evacuation by word of mouth, I think the principal should have made an announcement via the loudspeaker system once the school was emptied for the greatest part. Between the emergency call to the police and my daughter leaving (and the others from her group still stayed in school) one hour had gone by and there were still kids in school who had no idea what happened.

And what did they write in the newspaper? They praised how quickly and effectively the evacuation had taken place! Hello? I don't think so!

I can't wait to hear what she's going to report when she'll come home today.

[CellarDweller]

Geeez Chrissi!

That's very scary, and actually very stupid of the principal to rely on "word of mouth".  It obviously didn't work.

My own opinion, your daughter and yourself should make a statement to the press about it.  What happened should be public knowledge, so it doesn't happen again.

[optom3]

Chrissi that seems like a recipe for disaster to me, in fact totally insane.
The game chinese whispers is amusing  simply because the original message could have been, I don't like flying and by the end it has become, X is always lying.
The woman needs to go and get a reality check !!

[Penthesilea]

Oh well. I talked to three kids from the school. Apparently, the evacuation was complete between 7:10pm and 7:15pm. My daughter missed being notified just by a few minutes.

Still, I think that's too much time. It was a whole hour.

Meanwhile, I also read a second newspaper article on it, and I have to come to the principal's defense. After the amok in Winnenden last March, the principal got together with police and experts on the topic of emergency evacuations and behaviour in emergencies in general. Together they developped a new emergency plan (multiple ones, in fact, for several emergency scenarios).
The school also trained the new emergency plans. So I think no blame can be put on the principal.

I put the blame on the police (and possibly on the experts who worked on the plan, don't have enough information though).
The principal called the police at 6:10pm. The evacuation did begin only "shortly before 6:30pm", when the police was on site. For about 20 precious minutes nothing was done! Why, the heck? The article only said every action was taken in coodination with the police.
And the police seems to be very proud of their doing and emphazised how perfectly (direct quote) the evacuation went on and that the principal did everything according to plan. And how exemplary the safety measures of the school are.

 

I don't know. Wasting twenty minutes with doing nothing and one full hour from the first call to the police to the evacuation being complete does NOT seem exemplary and perfect to me .

I'll wait what more information will come forth over the next days.

Oh, and I learned that the loudspeaking system, of which was talked in the article, was the loudspeakers of the police cars. The school doesn't even have a loudspeaker system! But they do have a siren (Klaxon?).
So the decision was not between school loudspeakers and word of mouth, but between siren/police cars loudspeakers and word of mouth.
Just for the record, because I assumed something wrong this morning.

[Meryl]

CONGRATS ON 2,000 VAMP SLAYIN' POSTS, MONIKA!

[Kelda]

OMG

The school of my oldest daughter had a bomb threat yesterday - and she didn't know anything about it and stayed in school. To take the suspense out: it was only a monkeyshine (?), there was no bomb.

They had a Project Week the last week and yesterday evening they had a big festivity where they presented their projects. At 6:10pm the principal made an emergency call to the police, and shortly before 6:30pm they began to evacuate the school. The principal decided not to do an announcement via the loudspeaker-system, but to rely on mouth-to-mouth information, in order to avoid a panic (the school was jam-packed with almost 2000 people because of the festivity).
My daughter left the school shortly after seven, only because she had a ride with her aunt (the festivity was planned to last until 9pm). Her group had noticed that barely anybody was coming to see their project anymore, but didn't know why. Then she and her aunt wondered about the many people and police cars in front of the school. But only this morning we learned what happened from the newspaper.

While I think it was a good idea to start the evacuation by word of mouth, I think the principal should have made an announcement via the loudspeaker system once the school was emptied for the greatest part. Between the emergency call to the police and my daughter leaving (and the others from her group still stayed in school) one hour had gone by and there were still kids in school who had no idea what happened.

And what did they write in the newspaper? They praised how quickly and effectively the evacuation had taken place! Hello? I don't think so!

I can't wait to hear what she's going to report when she'll come home today.

OMG! Thats scary... 

I hope you make a complaint.. but what the hell is a moonshine?

[Penthesilea]

OMG! Thats scary... 

I hope you make a complaint.. but what the hell is a moonshine?

Monkeyshine (not moonshine) is what my dictionary gave me as translation for a really bad prank. Since it seemed strange to me, I added the ? in my first post.