Bomb threat forces Los Angeles Unified School District to temporary closure
Los Angeles Unified District went through extra precautions in order to ensure the safety of schools
All 900 schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) closed after the Los Angeles Board of Education received a threatening email on Dec. 15.
Although the threats in the email were only credible to a certain extent, based on the recent San Bernardino shooting and other events that had occurred in the Southern California area, the superintendent of LAUSD decided it was beneficial to take more safety precautions, according to the Los Angeles Times.
“I decided to close schools, and this choice was not made lightly. It disrupted the lives of our students, our employees and their families. Based on recent events, I took this precaution out of an abundance of caution and to ensure safety and security in our schools,” superintendent Ramon C. Cortines said, according to the official Los Angeles Unified School District website.
This closure of schools on a systemwide scale was the first district-wide school closure since 1994 when schools closed because of the Northridge earthquake.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation was searching for the original source of the email, according to the Los Angeles Times. In addition, LAUSD has confirmed that schools reopened for students to attend on Wednesday, Dec. 16, 2015.
“I thought, well, that’s good because I have finals,” LAUSD student Alexis Diaz said, according to the Los Angeles Times.
While the district-wide school closure only lasted one day, some teachers at schools in LAUSD felt wronged as they found out about the school closure from sources other than the district itself, according to the Los Angeles Times.
“I’m pretty distraught that they didn’t bother to tell us,” substitute teacher in LAUSD Alan Glasband said.
While LAUSD reacted to this same situation by proceeding with extreme caution, schools in New York responded quite differently as they continued their school activities and dismissed the same email as an obvious hoax on the same day as LAUSD, according to the Los Angeles Times.
“It’s not the best of situations. You can’t really put it it into words,” junior Lavender Tonini said. “In a sense, that in a better world it wouldn’t have happened or needed to have happened.”
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