Two false fire alarms sounded at Paly on Friday, disrupting Standardized Testing and Reporting (STAR) and Advanced Placement (AP) tests that students had been taking all week long.

Both times, alarms school-wide were triggered by an overly sensitive smoke detector in the skylight of the Student Center, according to assistant principal Chuck Merritt. The administration was able to locate the origin of the alarms through a fire panel, Node 1, located in the main office.

"As far as I understand, it was a system issue and a false alarm," Merritt said.

The first alarm went off at approximately 10:30 a.m. while students were taking the final portion of STAR testing, "Science 2."

"It was annoying, I had 10 questions left," sophomore Jessie Juarez said. "I had to wait until the end of the fire drill to finish."

Sophomore Talia Kori added, "The first one was frustrating. We were almost done, it was Friday and our last hour of testing."

The first alarm also displaced 13 students who were in the middle of their AP Spanish Literature test.

"It was distracting, but it was no big deal," said senior Charlotte Chiang.

The too-sensitive technology exposed students’ and staffers’ ears to a second round of alarms around 12:10 p.m. during their lunch period.

The Palo Alto Fire Department cleared both alarms.

"I’ve asked the district to disable the sensor in the skylight for the rest of the year," Merritt said.

Although Friday’s false alarms were the first of their kind this school year, Paly’s alarm systems gained notoriety last year after they went off during five separate occasions, the most recent on May 19, 2005.

"They [the false alarms] are very inconvenient," senior Matthew Litrus said. "The alarms are definitely losing their validity."

Juarez said, "People don’t take them seriously."

Despite these notions, students handled both evacuations as they should have, according to Merritt.

"I am happy the students handled it so well," he said.

Editor-in-chief Kristie Flatley also contributed to this story