Hey, well i have to write a an editorial on an important topic. SInce i am a member of the Bagdad fire protection district junior program i chose the topic of juniors being pulled from school to go on calls. However i cant find really reliable information on the actual dept.'s that pull students from school so i need your help. I need:

statistics for how mant departments pull juniors from class

Regulations for what kind of call and if the time of the day makes a difference as to if they are pulled out of class

age limits on being pulled from class

if a drivers license is required to leave class

if missed work can be made up

excused absence?

if red/blue lights are given for personal vehicle use from school to a fire scene

what types of call they can respond to during school hours

and anything else you think might be relevant to my topic
Thank you so very much, stay safe
Jessica

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i know there is not a fire department in Laurens county, South carolina that pulls jrs from school for calls..now with that said our saftly officer at my fd,wooks at the BMW plant in greer south carolina and if we get a bad enough call and if he wants too and can leave but he will only get paid 40 hors a year so if he leaves a few times and it adds up to be 65 hours he will get paid 40 of it and the other 25 he dont but i think thats good that the do that for the ffs that works there...
Our Jr. firefighters can leave school as long as they've got permission from their teacher and we make sure of this when school starts, if they cant leave then they better not show up.
I guess I will explain our policy from the Sanctioned Explorer Post we run. Now your junior program may have different rules but I guess that would be local option.

With the Explorer Post here - the answer to all of your questions is NEVER! Go to school, stay in school and focus on learning. There was a post about juniors being picked on in school, by other non-FD students. Well what kind of disruption does it cause to the teacher, and other non-junior students to hear a pager go off in the classroom? The explorer's are NOT allowed to go to the scene alone, they are supposed to meet-up at the station as a group and be escorted by an advisor, if they are brought to any scene. They are NOT allowed to wear SCBA or participate in ANY form of emergency activity on the fireground. They are supposed to be watch and learn type students. Therefore, focus your attention on your school work and not on the pager you are wearing. Ours do not even have any kind of pager, that would be a distraction to the explorer's learning alone.

I know the Explorer's here are NOT official members of the fire department organization, so who would be allowing you to run red/blue lights to a fire scene if you are not affilated?
on our dept the juniors can only leave for structure fires because we are a small dept and need all the help we can get!!
I would like to chime in and not to say that I promote the practice, but I was once a youngster that was pulled from class on certain alarms. Keep in mind this was several years ago when I was 12 (1992). Due to our department/county not being equipped with E911 or central dispatch the calls would go to what we called a Fire Bar. For those who don't remember those days it is kind of like a party line and it rings to all FF homes. Everyone answers to receive the alarm.

Back to the point where we were not centrally dispatched. During school hours my mom (active First Responder) would call the school, excuse me from class to run across town to the firehouse and sound the siren and dispatch the call over the radio.

Now I didn't however respond to the call unless it was necessary. I would generally walk back to school and join classes again.

With today's technology and central dispatch I don't believe this practice would be necessary. Shortly after I became a Jr the county implemented E911 and centralized the dispatch/communications.

I guess this is one of the reasons I became a Communications Officer and FireFighter.
We almost do not have a junior member program at all. The only way you are allowed to respond to a call under the age of 18 is with a parent that is an active member in good standing with the department with the chief's approval and be over 15 years old. Passing grades and all that stuff. No parent no play. If you are caught coming to the station even to listen to the call during school, you might as well not come back and leave the pagers on the desk on the way out.
We can go if we have notes from our parents saying we would be allowed. But we can only leave if there was a second tone that was given out. We need a way there, so we do need a license. If we're late for school, we can get the chief or an officer to give us a note and its excused and work can be made up. lights are permitted if we have our 6 month probabtion complete. Same for all our firefighters though. but of course if we're doing something like a test, im sure the teacher won't let us go. lol.
You have got to be kidding. Pulling kids from school to go to a fire. In South Carolina you cannot even take state fire academy classes untill you are 18. Letting anyone under that age opens you up to severe legal and monatary fines from the state OSHA board. We do have under 18's on my department but they do not respond to fires unless they have permission from the chief and their parents and then they cannot do any fireground operations. They are bascially assigned to rehab or help reload hose.
Jr/Explorers are absolutely NEVER permitted to respond to calls while in class. School and Education is #1 and the kids must maintain passing grades to be allowed to participate in firehouse activities, and even come to the firehouse for that matter. Any members with failing grades will be placed on temporary suspension until the grades are raised to passing status. In Phoenixville we do not use blue lights and only Chief Officers use Red lights in their POV.
Our department has rules about what kind of calls we can go to period. It is up to the explorers if they want to leave for the call. Also, we must have a not in the school from our parents saying we can leave. We are not given sirens and lights for our calls. It mostly is just up to the explorers if they want to leave the class and as long as it is a call we are able to respond to we can leave. If you need any more info I will try and answer
for those of you who responded with a yes can you give me the states you live in and your dept policies on pager use during school hours.
thanks to everyone who posted this is a big help
Jessica,
I don't know of ANY DEPARTMENT in Ohio @ least that allow Jrs to run lights & siren on their POV. To get a permit to run lights & siren you have to be a full member which means you have graduated high school so it wouldn't be an issue in this case. Some of our jrs do drive to school & the others will ride with them if they have to leave. If not, usually one of the mothers or another fire fighter will pick them up but if we are pulling them from school there isn't a lot of time or manpower to send someone for them.

We have pulled Jrs from class in the past when we were having a particularly bad brush fire season. We don't make a habit of it. Our Chief & Jr advisors discussed it with the Principal & Board of Education before hand. The agreement is that the Chief will call the school & explain to the Principal why he needs exactly WHO to be excused. (Parents have signed agreements for this & the school has a list of Jr firefighters) The student/jr is excused & responsible to make up any work missed during that time. The FD requires "passing" grades for our jrs. We have put them on probation with the understanding that if their grades do not improve, they will be dismissed or put on academic leave until their grades do improve. In the past when jrs were worried about grades we had study nights @ the fire station. If they are on probation due to grades, they won't be excused with the others to leave.

We have also excused students from morning classes when they were out very late on calls. We try to discourage them from turning out late on school nights but that isn't easy.

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