Assembly Bill 321 Re: School/Tornado Drills Need Your Assistance

Assembly Bill 321, regarding school drills (tornado/hazard drills) will be presented by Representative Joan A Ballwig in Madison during September for a vote. We need this Bill passed!

Right now, a section of this Bill will require schools to hold two tornado drills/one hazard drill each year. (An amendment will be offered to include fire drills.) Records of these drills will be required to be kept for seven years.

This bill will counteract a bill which was passed in 2006, that schools would no longer have to report school fire drills to the Department of Commerce or to their local fire departments but records would have to be maintained for seven (7) years. (Act 220)

Fire departments were not consulted regarding Act 220 for input. I don’t know if this is accurate but one newspaper reported they had done a research and 27% of schools were no longer doing school drills.

In speaking to our Association at the 2006 convention round table and to the WI Fire & EMS Legislative Leadership Coalition members, there was a strong consensus that all schools be required to report school drills to their local fire departments.

Also, after speaking with our legislatures, including Representative Ballwig, this would be a great time to have this corrected so that schools would again be required to report all drills to their local fire departments and EMS units. Since fire departments are the first to respond, we would then know where students are in each type of drill, saving a large amount of time in response/rescue and medical treatment.

The bottom line is that we need your help!! For the safety of your students and schools, Please contact your local representatives in Madison to vote “yes” on Assembly Bill 321. A list of representatives can be found at http://www.legis.state.wi.us/waml/