By Khalida Sarwari
First- through fifth-graders at Blue Hills Elementary School will get a lesson in more than just reading, writing, and arithmetic on Dec. 16. A team of building officials and engineers will visit the students to introduce them to basic engineering principles and discuss the importance of having functioning smoke and carbon monoxide detectors in the home.
The presentation will be given by the Peninsula Chapter of the International Code Council, a nonprofit made up of local building officials who, aside from making and changing codes to make buildings safe, are working to provide outreach to local elementary schools.
“We introduce the kids to the building safety triangle: firemen, police and building safety professionals,” Susan O’Brien, a civil engineer and a scheduled speaker on Dec. 16, said. “We call ourselves the quiet heroes.”
Through the use of a short video and props, speakers will touch upon such topics as what a building inspector does, the hazards of tangled extension cords (called an “electrical octopus”) and creating an emergency plan in the case of a fire or earthquake. And although frigid temperatures currently have people steering clear of the pool, the speakers also discuss pool safety.
Following the presentation, the students are instructed to recite a pledge, after which they are each deputized as a junior building inspector and given a plastic hard hat and a building safety workbook. The goal, said O’Brien, is to get the students to go home and make sure their smoke and carbon monoxide alarms are properly installed and share what they’ve learned with their family.
“Each [detector] has a distinct sound, so we play them for the kids and tell them to go home and check to make sure they have these devices in their home and they’re working,” said O’Brien.
The assembly will mark the ICC’s first outreach program in Saratoga. The program was started by Tony Falcone, a building official for Santa Cruz County and member of the ICC, and the first such presentation was held at Alexander Rose Elementary School in Milpitas last year.
Included in the Dec. 16 speaker line-up are Larry Francis, senior building inspector for Saratoga; Patricia Kutzmann, a consultant and engineer; John La Torra, a retired building official for Redwood City and former ICC board member; and Marko Glendinning, a building inspector for the town of Los Gatos.
“No matter how busy we are in our jobs, it’s so rewarding to see the looks on the kids’ faces at these presentations,” O’Brien said. “Just being up there and seeing them be really excited about what we do … makes what we do completely worth it.”
Two hour-long presentations will be held in the Blue Hills multi-purpose room on Dec. 16. The first is at 8:30 a.m., for students in fourth and fifth grades. The second is at 10 a.m. for first- through third-graders.
Visit iccpeninsula.org.
Building officials visit Blue Hills to offer students safety basics
