Bingham High School students are going above and beyond the call of duty this year to help keep everyone safe. A school safety video idea was presented last month to the Jordan School District by students who make up Bingham’s HOSA club (Health Occupations Students of America). The club is a national career and technical student organization that has competitions every year that make up many different events.

In 2014, the students made their first safety video for the HOSA competition. The teacher who is behind overseeing and facilitating this student-lead project, Cynthia Cox, said the competition is valuable to the students. 

“The competition is an avenue to share the information; it gives the students incentive by having a deadline,” she said. 

One of the students who chose to remake the video is Jaelyn Hansen. She said it’s important to do well in the competition, but she also wants it to benefit others.

“I want to win the competition, but I also want everyone to be aware, because if worst comes to worst, I’d like everyone to be prepared.”

The students gathered up once more to help spread awareness to safety procedures in any and all emergencies. The video will showcase steps to be taken when there is a shooter inside the school and the students are not in a classroom. It might also include what to do when a fire is detected or if there is an earthquake, and other emergencies. Student Katelyn Ordyna said “this is for everyone who is involved in an emergency. These procedures should be able to be applied in any emergency situation.”

Cox said the experience has been positive.

“When we made the first video, we had turned the classroom upside-down, and we were practicing a mass-casualty-type of situation, and one of the students got up and said, ‘This is good information; everyone needs to know this,’” she said. She then added how the HOSA competition could help them put forth that essential information.

Ashlin Jeffs, another student in charge of making the new video, said, “What spurred the idea to make the video better was the Las Vegas shooting. It got us thinking about what would happen if a school shooter came into Bingham and what we should do. We also started making an emergency evacuation plan for sports events while we were in class, and both of those combined sprung up an idea to remake the video.” 

Club members believe it is very important for everyone to remain calm and understand what is supposed to be done in all situations, so it becomes automatic.

“Our goal for the first video was to help the students know what to do during common times,” said Cox. 

Although the first video seems very helpful, the students want to take it a step further and make it better with more in depth explanations of emergency procedures, better acting and filming skills, and overall updating of the measures to take in the situations presented. 

Mike Simek wanted it noted that “It’s a redoing of the old video,” said club member Mike Simek. “We’re not adding much else; we are adding on quality.”

The student-made video is dedicated to the student body, and it will be broadcasted as much as possible so it reaches its target audience. The purpose of the video is to help students know exactly what to do if there is an emergency. It will be shown during lunch, passing periods or at an after-school activity. The filming is scheduled to start mid-January and will be used in the competition as well as broadcasted to the school.