Students and faculty evacuated school premises Wednesday during 4th period due to the fire alarm going off. This disrupted the school day as well as the AP Language and Composition exam taking place.

According to Assistant Principal Mark Rigby, there was no fire, no smoke, and no evidence of student involvement, but they’re still looking into it.

“In regards to the AP testing, they’ll just makeup the time. I don’t think this will have an effect on the students; if anything, it’s probably good for them that they got a little break,” Rigby said.

AP Literature and Composition or Great American Writers (GAW) students beg to differ.

“The fire alarm went off with 40 minutes left to go in the free response section of the test, forcing us all to go outside and wait for the ‘all-clear’ to go back in. I think the biggest effect it had on everyone was it kind of threw everyone off their game. When the alarm sounded, we were already over an hour into the test, and everyone was in a groove, but after the break, it was hard for me and a lot of other people to just pick up where we left off,” said junior Kosta Hatzopolos.

GAW teacher David Klingenberger immediately contacted The College Board after the alarm sounded.

“Stuff like this happens sometimes, and they have rules in place for what to do. The rule is that as long as students don’t take their cellphones outside, and as long as they’re being supervised and not talking about the exam, all they’re supposed do is to keep track of how much time is lost. They get to make that time up,” Klingenberger said.

Although most GAW students taking the exam were upset, they were grateful for how West handled it. Students were given an additional 19 minutes, the exact duration of the fire alarm, to complete the interrupted section of the exam.

“I think West handled it properly. I’m happy that we don’t have to retake any part of it because testing for four hours really isn’t something I like to spend my time doing, especially if I don’t get credit for the work I completed. I was aggravated that we had the disturbance because I was concentrating and had almost completed an essay, so I kind of lost my train of thought. But, it was also beneficial to be able to get fresh air and a small break from being inside a classroom all day,” junior Alexandra Mancini said.