School Lax on Bomb Threats, Family Says

Accusing Newbury Park High School administrators of mishandling a pair of bomb threats this week, one parent and her two daughters are planning a protest Monday to demand more active responses in the future.

Terry Jump and her daughters, 14-year-old Lindsay and 18-year-old Tiffany, decided on the lunchtime protest, planned for the campus quad, after they learned the school had received two bomb threats over the phone Thursday morning--but did not evacuate the campus or conduct an exhaustive search.

The Ventura County Sheriff’s Department, called in to investigate the incidents, determined the calls were hoaxes. Although school and sheriff’s officials say policy does not require an exhaustive search after a phone threat, the Jumps said the measures taken at the time were not sufficient to protect the students had the calls been real.

“I am angry and scared for the safety of my children, the other children and the staff,” Jump said.

The school, which has about 1,500 students, received a bomb threat about 8 a.m and then again about 10 a.m., Principal Max Beaman said.

After each call, officials followed school procedure by calling the Sheriff’s Department. Each time deputies conferred with school officials on the threat and then searched the school’s perimeter and some classrooms for suspicious items, Beaman said.

School administrators also sent confidential notes to teachers notifying them of the bomb threats and telling them to search the room for suspicious items without frightening students.

“Based in the assessment of the phone calls and the search, the decision was made that the evacuation was not necessary,” Beaman said, declining to elaborate. The search by deputies left him “confident the students were safe and there was no reason to evacuate the campus for student safety.”

Deputies generally do not summon the department’s bomb squad after a telephone threat unless other suspicious circumstances, such as a mysterious package, are present, Sgt. Paul Higgason of the bomb squad said.

“You need more than a verbal threat,” he said.

Jump said she can understand that school officials may not have wanted to panic students. But such a cursory response would not have protected students, she maintains.

Tiffany, who was in class during the second bomb threat, said the search was not thorough.

“We sat there,” she said. “They didn’t search our classroom, nothing. I don’t feel safe when I’m going to school and people are threatening us with bombs.”

Authorities “should have done a complete 100% thorough search of the school: backpacks, lockers, classrooms, toilets, everything,” she said.

Times correspondent Jason Takenouchi contributed to this story.