Petaluma school, district seek to calm waters in wake of bomb threat

Casa Grande High School on Wednesday hosted a community forum as Petaluma City Schools officials sought to limit fallout from communications decisions in the wake of a false bomb threat made against the school last week.

Police and school officials first learned of a threat targeting the Casa Grande lunchroom shortly before 7 p.m. Sept. 29, police said. The warning, which came via an anonymous reporting app, warned of an attack at 12:15 p.m. Thursday — at the start of lunch, school officials confirmed.

Despite heavy police presence early Thursday, Casa Grande parents, students and staff weren’t informed of the potential attack until mid-morning, long after some 1,600 students had filtered past police cruisers and into their morning classes.

School leaders announced the forum last Thursday, as parents, students and staff demanded answers after they say officials bungled communication about the potential risk to the campus and district community.

Matthew Harris, the first-year superintendent of Petaluma City Schools, the city’s second-largest school district, said Petaluma police and school leaders did not believe the threat was credible. But Harris acknowledged communication missteps, adding that he led a full debriefing with Casa Grande administrators at the close of the school day.

“I think we learned from this event,” Harris said. “Given the information we have now, we could have done a better job communicating this out to the community.”

Casa Grande leaders chose to continue school, and Principal Dan Ostermann confirmed the bomb threat in an 11 a.m. email to the school community and in an announcement to students and staff over the school’s public address system, students said. In the email, Ostermann promised to remain vigilant, and to continue working with law enforcement to ensure the school was safe.

By noon, police had secured portions of the school, deploying at least one CHP bomb-sniffing dog, Harris said. There were no evacuations or lockdowns, Petaluma Police Lt. Tim Lyons said.

But the decision to keep school in session — and the delayed communication — prompted a wave of pushback as students and parents sought answers about school leaders’ decision-making surrounding the threat.

Harris said a number of factors led police to question the credibility of the threat, including a rash of similar false reports at surrounding schools in preceding weeks.

The threat also came the same day a freshman class of 80 physical education students was introduced to the anti-bullying app, STOPit, the same app used to anonymously report the bomb threat.

“My understanding is they understood from the beginning it wasn’t a real, credible threat,” said Sandra Larsen, president of the Petaluma Federation of Teachers, adding that she expects school and district officials will change their approach if a similar situation occurs. “I feel really strongly that in the future this will be handled the way it needs to be handled.”

The Wednesday forum took place as the Petaluma Police Department continued its quest to find the culprit of the fake threat.

“I think we’ve written three search warrants to try to locate the IP address of the fake complaint,” Petaluma Police Lt. Tim Lyons said Tuesday. “We look into it, there’s no question about it. But we also go about it in other ways, too.”

Petaluma City Schools Board of Education President Joanna Paun expressed frustration, and said she worried about the impact of the misuse of the reporting app, which promises anonymity to students seeking to protect themselves or their peers.

“This whole situation has just been so frustrating,” Paun said. “It’s really disappointing to see people using the app in this way. It’s an app meant to report bullying and harassment.”

Tyler Silvy is editor of the Petaluma Argus-Courier. Reach him at tyler.silvy@arguscourier.com, 707-776-8458, or @tylersilvy on Twitter.