Normal Community High School evacuates to Eastview Christian Church in an emergency, such as on Sept. 7, 2012 when a student brought several weapons into the school and fired gunshots into the ceiling of a classroom. (Stephanie Pawlowski/WJBC)

By Stephanie Pawlowski

NORMAL - Every school in Unit 5 has now done an evacuation drill following the shooting at Normal Community High School in September.

Superintendent Gary Niehaus said the student evacuation sites have changed. Normal West, Kingsley and Parkside all evacuate to Redbird Arena and Chiddix goes to Epiphany.

"We've tried to better understand what we do during a reunification," Niehaus said. "We've certainly spent a lot of time on getting our transportation together so we can get kids back and forth between the school and the site and the site back to the school."

The distance between most of the schools and the evacuation sites are too far to walk, so the district is bussing students. Niehaus said that keeps everyone together.

"It also keeps everybody enclosed. It puts a position of helping us account for kids, if we put them on the bus and take them off the bus and put them back into another venue," Niehaus said.

Next for the district is more drills. Niehaus said it will take more practice to make sure the district is ready in case of another crisis.

Stephanie Pawlowski can be reached at Stephanie.Pawlowski@Cumulus.com.