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Area schools suffer from threats, rumors of violence
On the heels of the Columbine shootings, administrators are taking threats seriously
By Michelle Ku
In the wake of the Columbine High School shootings, schools throughout the country have experienced bomb threats and similar kinds of copycat threats.
And while schools in the Fremont Union High School and Cupertino Union School districts have remained calm overall, they are not immune to the problems plaguing other areas.
"Compared to other districts, it's actually been very peaceful here," said Joe Hamilton, district superintendent.
Despite the calm, both districts in the last two weeks responded to rumors of threats that referenced the Columbine massacre.
On May 6, officers from the sheriff's department and administrators at Kennedy Junior High School determined that a rumor circulating around campus regarding a bomb threat was false.
The rumor started the previous day when a student told a friend that another student made a threat against the school. The friend shared it with other students and Kennedy began receiving phone calls about the situation on May 6. Kennedy called in Sheriff's officers and following an investigation, the officers concluded the rumor was a hoax. The officers met with the students involved who confessed they had fabricated the incident.
"The two students who started it innocently enough were shocked," said Van Adams, principal of Kennedy. "They said, 'Oh my god, how did this get around?' But they [admitted] they did say those things, and that they couldn't believe it had gotten beyond that."
This is the first time that Kennedy has been the subject of a bomb threat, Adams said. "In my tenure here, and I've been here three years, I don't think we've ever had anything like that, not even in jest. Nonetheless, we took this seriously."
At FUHSD, Monta Vista and Lynbrook were the targets of threats. One involved a statement a student found on a web page.
"The threat was on Friday [April 30] and it said someone would be shooting students from a rooftop," said Mary Stone, Monta Vista principal.
The school called in officers from the Sheriff's Department, and after they investigated the situation for four or five hours, they determined the school was not in any danger.
Two or three days prior to April 30, a Monta Vista High School student believed he saw something on the internet while he was using a computer at the Cupertino Library.
The student didn't immediately notify the school administration, but he told his schoolmates, who then passed on the information before noon on April 30.
"We sent someone with the technology person and the student [who saw the threat] to the library, and it was no longer on the web page," Stone said. "We never found anything that would authenticate the statement."
Since officers never verified the statement, administrators believe the threat was a rumor. "But you don't take any chances, and you check everything out," Stone said.
On the same day, Lynbrook administrators were alerted to a threat, relating to Columbine, written on one of the bathroom stalls.
The statement was general and did not name any students, but it did indicate that harm would come to Lynbrook students on May 5, according to Linda Zanzow, a Lynbrook employee. Nothing occurred at the school that day. "Everything pretty much was a nice and quiet day," said Bill Richter, Lynbrook principal. "Nothing happened."
Lynbrook took the precaution of having uniformed and plain-clothed police officers on campus.
After hearing about the graffiti, Richter sent a letter to parents to warn them of the threat and to tell them the steps the school was taking to combat the problem.
"I think as a result of that [letter] that a lot of parents made the determination that they did not want to send their student to school [that day]," Richter said. "We have probably a 40 percent absence rate today. This is a pretty quiet school and we don't have a lot of things relating to violence here. I think a lot of the parents opted to keep their son or daughter home and I respect them for that, but on the other hand, I don't think there was a credible threat."
Across the county, the Sheriff's Office has noticed an increase in the number of reports it has received, but the reports have not translated into an increase of activity in the Sheriff's jurisdiction, said Sgt. Luther Pugh.
Pugh attributes the higher figures to a shift in community awareness.
Traditionally, the district receives a bomb threat every couple of months, but that's typical of any high school, according to Hamilton.
"Every school anywhere has that happening," Hamilton said. "When I was a high school principal over in the East Bay, we had bomb threats probably once a month. It happens in our district--probably not as often--but occasionally."
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Sunnyvale, California Since 1994
