For the first two weeks of the school year, the bells and PA system were not working in several classrooms, leading to concerns on hearing important announcements and student safety.

During construction, Beacon Communications put in a new intercom system. However, they replaced the 200 watt amps with 100 watt amps for the intercom, reducing the volume of the bells and announcements drastically, according to Principal Don Stensrud, who is also frustrated with the situation of the lack of bells.

“Things aren’t where they need to be,” said Stensrud at a press conference with FHS Publications staff on Aug. 28.

A meeting had been scheduled with Beacon, the Fairview Construction Project Manager, and the Director of Security to work on fixing the issue to make the bells and PA system functional for all the classrooms.

“We’re gonna get this fixed and we’re gonna get it fixed now,” said Stensrud.

While the problem is in the process of being solved, it has disrupted the students’ ability to go through their school day normally.

Ayako Kiyota, a senior, has not had bells in three of her classes: IB LA 12, in room 848, AP Statistics in room 201 and in Festival Choir in the Choir room.

Kiyota’s math class is third period, the period in which there is extra time built in for the announcements. Without having the PA system in her class, she has never heard the announcements.

“It’s frustrating when you can’t hear those announcements because you could be missing something very vital,” said Kiyota.

The PA system doesn’t give just the daily announcements about upcoming activities, not having the PA system leads to another more serious issue: the PA system is used to alert the school when there needs to be a lockdown or a lockout.

Senior Camille Lamarque feels that without this safety measure in place, there is more danger at school.

“I think our safety is at risk,” said Lamarque.

Without having the PA system working, there is no way to immediately alert the entire school to go into a lockdown or a lockout.

“It’s a potential… lawsuit case,” said Lamarque, “if something were to happen and someone got injured because the PA system wasn’t working.”

Although many of the non-functioning bells have been fixed in the past few weeks, the students’ frustrations led to a rough start to the year.