Police said an alarm went off and it turned out to be an electrical malfunction in one of the restrooms. It wasn't anything suspicious, they said, and the school was evacuated according to standard school procedure.

My daughter tells a different story. She called me to say that there was a small fire in the teacher lounge and the smoke was coming into her classroom. She was pretty shaken up.

Due to budget cuts and the heaters being turned off, teachers were burning desks and chairs to stay warm and brew coffee. One of the fires got out of hand and the fire department was called in.

Unfortunately, due to further cutbacks to the Fire Department budget, the response was delayed while the firemen took up a collection to purchase gas for the firetrucks.

I wonder why a "restroom electrical malfunction" could result in such a response by emergency units? I heard the schools alarm from outside of the building and it sounded like one of those ADT alarms going off.
I suppose by default all city resources are called into play when responding to a school alarm. Which IMHO is a good thing.

ya!!! so the electrical panel in the B-pod teacher's bathroom (in the teacher's lounge) short circuted and there was some smoke coming from the bathroom. 3 fire trucks came, 2 ambulances, and 2 police cars. We were evacuated around 10:30 and had to stay out there for at least a 1/2 hour! When we were excused to go back to class, we saw maybe 10 firefighters entering the school with ladders and were climbing up the roof! IT WAS SOOOOOO EXCITING! plus, I got to miss science :O). It was ironic because the day before, we had an earthquake/intruder drill, but did not evacuate because it was too cold! Yesterday, it was cold AND rainy!!!!!!!! WE WERE ALLLLL FREEEEEEEEEEEZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :O)