7
Because the Bloomington-Normal community
has a population of more than 100,000 and sits at
the intersection of Interstates 55, 74 and 39, there
are several police agencies in the immediate area.
The police response was swift and involved no
fewer than five police agencies – and included
different protocols than what was in the school
district’s emergency plans.
“School officials need to understand that every
local, county and state police officer in the vicinity is
going to respond,” said Niehaus, who estimated that
more than 80 officers arrived at the scene. “We
were surprised how fast
they
got there. In the few
minutes it took for
our people to get
from the district office
to the high school a
roadblock
already
had been set up.”
That wasn’t the
only surprise.
Because it is not
something that ever
is practiced at most schools, students and even
some faculty and staff were alarmed to see police
officers enter the building in full gear with their
weapons drawn and pointed as they began their
sweep of the classrooms.
Plans called for faculty members to take their
crisis folders with them, but police officers would not
allow anyone to carry anything as they cleared the
building. Keeping a copy of the master list of
students, faculty and staff at the evacuation sites
and a way to track absentees off-site was another
lesson learned.
Plans also called for buses to transport students
to the evacuation site, but Niehaus said State Police
apparently decided that no buses would be allowed
past the barricades around the school.
“In addition to the training we do with our local
police, we learned that we need to have more
contact with State Police,” Niehaus said.
Finally, getting back into the school building to
retrieve items that students had been forced to
leave during the evacuation proved to be a difficult
negotiation. Even though the incident had taken
place in just one classroom, investigators viewed
the whole building as a crime scene.
“We were lucky that it happened on a Friday so
we did not have to deal with having
school the next morning, but I thought it
was really important for kids to be able to go
back into the school that day so they could see
that nothing was scary or different,” Niehaus said.
“We had to keep pressing law enforcement officials,
but we finally got in. It seemed to really settle the
kids and parents to get back in and see the
building.”
Phones were not reliable means
of communications
Two-way communications become vital in a
lockdown and evacuation scenario, and phones
were not a dependable source of communications
because of busy signals and reception problems in
certain parts of the three main sites involved (the
school building, the evacuation/reunification center
and the district office).
The district since has invested in two-way radios
and a repeater system that not only provide
communications capabilities among school
administrators, but the radios also are interoperable
with the radio systems used by law enforcement
agencies.
The incident also caused school officials to
rethink district policy regarding allowing students to
carry cell phones. Some students were carrying cell
phones that day and they proved to be beneficial by
allowing the students to communicate with their
parents, adding to the calm. Now, by policy,
students are allowed to carry cell phones for use in
non-instructional settings.
Niehaus said the district also is going to set up a
text messaging system to keep students informed
during an incident.
One novel method of communication that
emerged was that the school’s messages also were
announced at State Farm, the largest employer in
the Bloomington-Normal region.
(Continued from page 6)
(Continued on page 8)
“
It is not a simple process and
we had to go slow before we
could go fast
.
”
- Assistant Superintendent Nathaniel Cunningham, Jr.
talking about the reunification process involving 1,900 students
McLean story ——————————————————
Lessons
Learned
