Here’s How Much Closing Schools for a Terror Threat Cost LA

The shutdown at America’s second-largest school district – federal officials said later the threat was likely a hoax – was highly unusual because it involved hundreds of thousands of students.

“As you know, L.A. Unified always puts student safety first”, LAUSD Chief Deputy Superintendent Michelle King said in a statement after the schools reopened.

Los Angeles officials later determined the threat was a hoax, after more than 640,000 students were released early from classes.

The threat sent electronically that prompted the closing of the Los Angeles school district on Tuesday was linked to an Internet address in Frankfurt, Germany, a spokeswoman for the school district said.

The hoax was supposedly perpetrated by a bullied Muslim student who’s a fan of the Showtime hit TV program “Homeland”, as the alleged threat is eerily similar to a plot line of the show, according to New York Police Department Commissioner Bill Bratton.

Classes are back in session in the Los Angeles Unified School District a day after an emailed threat led the huge school system to shut down.

Officials from left, Chief Charlie Beck, State Superintendent Tom Torlakson, Sheriff Jim McDonnell, Los Angeles Unified School Police District Chief Steven Zipperman, Mayor Eric Garcetti, and LAUSD Board President Steve Zimmer discuss today’s LAUSD schools closures at LAUSD headquarters in Los Angeles Tuesday, Dec. 15, 2015.

The head of a consulting firm on school security, Ken Trump, says school leaders who are faced with a threat that they don’t believe is credible will sometimes let community anxiety rule the decision to evacuate or close. After all, two weeks before Christmas is a particularly busy time for parents, especially parents who are hourly wage employees: traditional wage workers like delivery drivers, post office employees, waiters, retail and stockroom workers and janitors and the new class of “gig economy” workers and freelancers.

Lee Stein, a parent with a daughter in fifth grade at Ivanhoe Elementary School, said he heard about the closure via a news alert to his phone, which he confirmed by calling the principal. Los Angeles is just an hour away from San Bernardino, where a radicalized couple killed 14 people in a gun massacre December 2.

The children attend the Oaks, a Hollywood private school, which opted to remain closed “out of caution”, Prescott said. He indicated he plans to have schools open Wednesday.

With the San Bernardino attack so fresh, school officials “did what they were supposed to do”, Vasquez said.

“I always tell them to be kind”, she said, “and not to get defensive and be angry”.

Cortines said he ordered the closures because he was not going to take a chance given recent terror strikes in Paris and San Bernardino.

The threat made to LAUSD does not call out local schools.

The decision to close Los Angeles schools was announced around the same time, at 6:25 a.m. PST.

It’s also unclear how much money Los Angeles lost from the estimated high number of parents who may have missed work to care for their children.

The district spans 720 square miles including Los Angeles and all or part of more than 30 smaller cities and some unincorporated areas.