When I was with Schaeferville F.D. our Explorers idn't have to respond do to we had plenty of FF's to repond. If they were already at the station they could repond to the call.
I was allowed to leave school for all calls as were 2 of my classmates. I am now a carrer firefighter. My opinon is that a lot of Fire depts have a sever shortage of personal and need every able body to respond. This is the case with my dept. We have 4 payed firefighters, 15 vollentters and 5 cadets and Protect over 2200 Square miles. Yes we have mutual aid, but that normally 30 to 50 min away and we may see one firefighter. For you guys on here who are saying stayin school and its a bad thing, That may fork fine for you if you have the personal, however out here in the west were some distcrts strech over the horizon. It may be needed to have them leave school.
The smaller the community the need for 18 and 19 year old firefighters. If a school has any common sense they will allow students to leave. Never know it might be a teacher's house.
when I was a SR in High school I got my pager well I was allowed to take it to school well a friend of mine said I could bring it we had 2 calls that day for fire alarms i didn't go at all i was in class and I wanted to go but I stayed.
Permalink Reply by Bekks on September 29, 2010 at 11:24am
We (my volly service and the others in the area) generally avoid even taking applications from 18 year olds. No point, as soon as they get trained, they leave for college, summer jobs, etc then they are gone for the better part of 2-4 years for college/university and many never come back to the town. They just can't commit and we prefer people who are going to stay... not leave within a year.
As for the full time jobs, there is so much competition in Canada, good luck making the first cut without at least ONE college diploma or university degree on your resume!
I'm 41, been to college twice, and reciently finished a highschool course that I missed way back when because it is a requirement for the next college program I want to take. The days of the 'one career for the rest of your life' are over and you need a good base from which to grow - stay in high school now, you WILL need it later on.
Permalink Reply by Bekks on September 29, 2010 at 11:36am
I guess you have to do what you have to do.... I live in a small rural community and we don't have trouble getting adults on the department. Most of the 18 year olds take the school bus and the school is too far from their towns to be of any use during school hours anyway.
If the demand was significant enough to HAVE people that young on the department... they should be allowed to go. Maybe the school or department could arrange tutors to help them make up the lost class time. They give up their class time for the community, the class and school should give back. (*takes off his rose-coloured-glasses and puts them back in their case*)
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When I was in HS, my department forbid students from responding from school. If you did, you were suspended for 30 days. I maintained that policy when I was President of the Board for the department. You are students first and your education has priority. It also makes for a good report with the school board and guarantees full cooperation on the occasions when all hands are necessary for an incident.
In Many areas here in Pennsylvania and especially the rural areas many schools and businesses allow people to leave their respective locations to respond on calls in order to increase the number of responding personnel to incidents,and our legislators have been considering a number of bills under the volunteer fire/ems retainment and recruitment initiative to encourage employers to allow there volunteer fire and ems employees time for training and response with tax and other incentives.
An 18 year-old student leaving school for what are almost certainly very occasional fire calls seems perfectly legitimate to me. That same student can leave school permanently for the armed forces. Let's keep things in perspective here.