Granville County Schools superintendent, students urge taking safety drills seriously

Dr. Stan Winborn, superintendent of Granville County Schools, and members of the district's superintendent student advisory council asked students to take safety drills seriously in a short video message distributed to the district.

"By now, I hope you know how important your safety and well-being is to me. In fact, it's my number 1 priority," Dr. Stan Winborn said in the video. Student speakers emphasized that drills train students to respond correctly if an event is real: "Safety drills are important because it prepares you for the real thing and that you don't know if it's real or not. So when you think it's a drill, it could be the real thing."

Students in the video also warned that treating drills as jokes could create "a huge safety issue" and that talking during a drill could prevent people from hearing instructions in an actual emergency. The messages were presented as a brief public-safety reminder and not linked in the video to any new policy or scheduled change to district procedures.

The video was introduced by Winborn and produced with the superintendent's student advisory council, which Winborn said helped identify topics important to student safety. The district did not state changes to drill frequency, procedures, or authorities in the recording.