Leadership Matters - May 2013

McLean story ——————————————————

Lessons Learned

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 “ 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

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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

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.

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

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