“A Credible Electronic Threat”

A “credible electronic threat” has caused the closure of the nation’s second largest school district. The Los Angeles Unified School District has closed all of its school campuses today following the threat, affecting 700,000 school-aged children. Superintendent Ramon Cortines has directed plant managers at all campuses to survey the grounds for anything suspicious. The FBI is assisting the LAPD who have sent officers to schools as the threat is investigated. LAUSD has set up a call in numbers that parents can use for information and has requested that they collect children who were already at school.

A district-wide crisis such as this requires evacuation planning on the part of schools. Parents now need to locate children already left at school or those travelling to school by bus. This is another example of how schools must plan for a large-scale city crisis. Parents and caregivers, must be included in the evacuation plan to allow for rapid, safe collection of children when a crisis occurs.

It was reported to day that one Los Angeles mother learned of the threat on television and tried to locate her 13-year old son at Hollywood High.  “I’m trying to figure out where he is,” she said. “If they sent an alert, I never received it.”