Area schools get email threat similar to others

Students in Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Houston and Dallas were heading to school Thursday, hours after school officials in those cities said they received threats similar to the ones received by the Los Angeles and NY school districts earlier this week.

A district south of Indianapolis said classes on Friday, the last day before holiday break, would be canceled because it received a “serious” threat Thursday afternoon.

School officials in Texas, Florida and California said they increased school security to be on the safe side.

All Plainfield and Danville schools are closed on Thursday after a threats were directed toward the schools, officials said. Long Beach officials deemed the threat it received late Wednesday night to be not credible and chose to keep schools open and on the usual schedule for the district’s 79,000 students.

A parent got in touch with Goshen High School Tuesday morning to report a threat that a student had posted on Facebook, according to Goshen Community Schools.

The new threat comes on the heels of Tuesday’s districtwide closure in Los Angeles, which was sparked by an email threatening a large-scale attack.

In their email to parents, they state that the email they received was similar enough to those in larger cities like Los Angeles, Houston and New York City and were deemed as not credible.

The move comes less than two weeks after two shooters killed 14 people in San Bernardino in what was the deadliest terrorist attack on US soil since 9/11. “Both law enforcement agencies have determined that this is not a credible threat and there is no danger to our student and staff population”. The Texas district did not elaborate.

In Orlando, Orange County Superintendent Barbara Jenkins said the threatening email was sent to the district’s general email late Wednesday, and principals have been asked to stay alert and keep students calm. A regular school day is expected today and tomorrow.

The third individual apparently made the Facebook postings that spurred both the Danville district and Plainfield district to cancel classes.

In Miami, school district police immediately contacted law enforcement agencies and made a decision to open schools.

The Indiana threats appeared to be different from the hoax emails sent to the larger school districts elsewhere in the country, Danville Community School Corporation Superintendent Tracy Shafer told Reuters.

In the Indianapolis area, several threats were leveled this week at the Franklin Community Schools, located about 20 miles south of Indy.