CAMPUS
NEWS
SAFETY
FALSE ALARM
CAUSES PANIC
A power outage trigged an
active shooter announcement
Nov. 27, briefly panicking students,
faculty and staff.
At about 2:30 p.m., the fire
alarm panel in the Campus Safety
Office malfunctioned, sending a
pre-recorded emergency mes-
sage into some classrooms that
warned about a “disturbed individ-
ual” on campus.
The audio alert notified
students and staff to either leave
the campus, hide or prepare
to fight. Many students ran to
classrooms or to the parking lots.
Others stayed in place out of
shock and uncertainty, unsure if
the news they were hearing was
true.
“An announcement went out
saying get away from windows
and doors and find a classroom. I
locked myself in the restroom and
stood on the toilet thinking ‘this
is it...today is the day I don’t make
it home,” one student posted on
social media after the incident.
At 2:35 p.m., campus safety
officials made an audio
announcement saying that the
alert was a false alarm. An active
threat would have triggered
emergency notifications delivered
via email and text as well, SAC
President Linda Rose said.
RSCCD Campus Safety and SAC
Administrative Services are now
working to ensure that a power
outage does not trigger false
alarms again.
/Bre Castaneda
Maria Palomares has worked as a daytime
custodian at Santa Ana College for 14 years.
Shift Changes
STORY
MARTA KONARSKA
PHOTO
NIKKI NELSEN
Custodial vacancies result in heavier workload, complaints about dirty campus
Empty soap dispensers. Dirty stairwells. Calls
for cleanup left unanswered for hours. A series
of drastic changes to the schedules of custodi-
ans at Santa Ana College this summer created a
ripple eff ect that resulted in the loss of staff that
is having an impact on campus cleanliness.
For the fi rst time in more than two decades,
custodians got new shifts, although some were
only changed by a few hours, others moved from
daytime to graveyard. Several custodians quit in
response, and their tasks were split between the
remaining staff , according to those who stayed.
Maria Palomares, who has worked a day shift
at SAC for 14 years, said that she is often over-
whelmed with her own job and is unable to fulfi ll
her new expanded duties or respond in time to
additional requests.
“Last time we got the call to clean a wet chair in
the classroom, and the class started in 10 min-
utes. We need more people to respond to calls
like that in time,” said Palomares, whose shift was
moved from a start time of 6 a.m. to 8:30 a.m., a
change that also aff ected her personal life.
“Last semester I was able to make sure there
is always toilet paper and enough soap in the
restrooms before the classes started. Right now,
I need to go to the D-Building to fi ll up the soap
containers because they didn’t have any for
weeks.”
Students and staff pointed to daytime restroom
upkeep and stairwells, including those in the
four-story Dunlap Hall, as main cleanliness
concerns. Some say that it’s understandable
that the restrooms get dirty since students use
it frequently during the day, but that they’ve no-
ticed a diff erence in cleanliness since the hours
changed. Graffi ti on the walls in some restrooms
still needs to be cleaned off .
“There are not custodians to make rounds
during the day and keep restrooms clean for
students,” said Sean Small, vice president of
the California School Employee Association,
the union that represents classifi ed staff . “This
work is done on the graveyard shift only at the
moment. We are still actively engaged with the
district working to improve this situation for ev-
eryone.”
It is unclear how many custodians quit after the
shift changes were abruptly changed in July;
however, a department workfl ow chart posted
to the school website Nov. 13 shows four vacant
custodian positions. A district job posting for a
Please See CLEAN Page 5
el Don Santa Ana College · December 2018
3