Mr. Priloleau’s thoughts about the fire situation.
(3/17/26) An apparent emergency situation at Northern High School forced students and teachers to evacuate the building. Local fire and emergency first responders were called in suspicion of a potential fire at the high school. Many students were afraid and confused during the evacuation because they thought that the staff did a poor job communicating to the students what was going on and what to do. Mr. Prioleau was on scene during the apparent emergency situation.
Q: What are your thoughts on the fire that happened yesterday?
A: ”Well you know things happen, yes it was one of those things where… an unfortunate situation happened we had some form of… outage that caused a shortage, it created smoke within the building and so you have to proceed with caution right? Number one precaution is the safety of all stakeholders in the building… So the building was evacuated, it took time for the fire department… to come in and determine what was going on, and in the process we were working with the students and the community, you know some students contacted their parent or guardian and in the process put something in place so they can be checked out… So you know it happened but we were prepared for it.”
Q: Is the situation fully resolved?
A: “As of yesterday the situation has been resolved however, they’re gonna still do some follow up checks [to] make sure everything’s in place and everything is working as it should be working. Then they’ll follow up with Dr Simmons… To find a conclusion [on] what to place [and] where things are now. As of right now we are proceeding as normal.”
Q: What did you learn from the situation, how did it affect the school and how will it affect similar situations?
A: “We learned from this situation [is] that you have to prepare for the unknown… and when the unknown happens we have to be able to deal with it. The number one thing is to keep our stakeholders calm, to communicate with the community what’s going on.. So that everyone is addressed about what’s going on. Yesterday was unfortunate because it happened all of a sudden so our communication may have gotten out slowly but eventually it got out, we made sure we communicated with our parents and our guardians about what’s going on… things were able to work out in the end… Students were all evacuated, students were released at the normal time with their buses or car rides or however they were going home. We learned that we have to be prepared for any situation… We have to remain calm in all situations and be ready to make sure everyone is safe and secure.”