Security officials had been researching the threat and its source since 10 pm Monday night, but they did not contact Cortines the Superintendent of Los Angeles Unified School District until 5: am Tuesday (today) morning. Cortines decided to put out the order to cancel school for the day in the nation's second largest district, with 700,000 students.
Ramon Cortines is retiring with a pension of three figures.
Some sources have said that the threat included claims of Muslims acting at several locations at the same time to inflict violence on L.A. schools, using explosives and firearms.
Parents got "robo calls" generated by an automatic system that disseminates urgent information by way of phone calls, informing them (provided they answer the phone, that is) that their child(ren) would not have any school today. School buses were left in their parking lots and drivers took a holiday. A few buses that had already left for routes had to be recalled, and a few early pick-ups had to be taken back to their respective bus stops, or brought to centers where they would await pickup from their parents.
Teachers had no classes to hold and various scheduled tests, including some semester finals (charter schools start early in August so as to complete semester before Christmas) had to be stopped. Some students who feared being unprepared for tests were not unhappy that they were delayed.
Area businesses were asked to cooperate with employees who are parents of children who have nowhere to go since school is closed for the day.
Later, the authorities concluded that this was probably a hoax. The school district says it is a muti-million dollar hoax, but keeping the schools open was a risk they could not take.
The threat is being described in various ways, for it is common practice not to divulge details so as to not encourage copy-cat scenarios. They say that bombs left in packages, rifles and guns were mentioned in the threat, and several names of known people were used to lend credibility.