Oakland's Chabot Elementary Receives Another Bomb Threat

Updated 5 p.m. Friday

Less than a month after a bomb threat shut down Chabot Elementary School in Oakland and led to evacuations, another threat has come into the school. Both are believed to be prompted by an ongoing internet firestorm over a playdate social event for students from “Black, brown and API families” at the school.

In a message sent to parents on ParentSquare just after 2 p.m. on Thursday, Chabot Principal Jessica Cannon wrote: “This morning another threatening email was sent to me, the office, and the equity & inclusion email. The email threatened that bombs could be activated at Chabot on Monday morning if I did not apologize for being racist before then.”

She noted that the school had notified Oakland Police Department and the FBI. While security will remain in place, including the addition of a bomb squad on the campus, and non-employees are being asked to limit their time on campus, the school told parents they plan to remain open at present.

Chabot Elementary, which is part of Oakland Unified School District and serves the neighborhood around the Rockridge BART station, has been dealing with ongoing hate mail and threats that started in late August, according to KRON4.

This is believed to have all been triggered by a “playdate” event for students of Black, brown and Asian and Pacific Islander heritage organized by the school’s equity and inclusion committee in August. The school district, at the time, told the San Francisco Chronicle in a statement: “This playdate aimed to create an affinity space where Black, Brown, and API families can build and sustain connection and belonging at the school.” While the event was designed to create community and a safe space for families of color, the school said at the time that no one was turned away from attending the event regardless of background.

A similar social was held last year without prompting threats. However, this year’s event was posted on Reddit by a parent at the school (in a post that has since been deleted) and was then shared by a high-profile conservative Twitter account, Libs of TikTok, which has 2.4 million followers and called the playdate “racist against white people.”

Since then, the elementary school has been inundated with hate mail and calls. Parents say a town hall meeting was held a few weeks ago to discuss the threats to their kids and they were told the original poster had been given a 14-day stay away order.

“The sad irony about especially these racially motivated bomb threats is that the person who is making these bomb threats is also probably, ironically, the person who was screaming about how COVID restrictions and COVID shutdowns of schools were harming children. But in fact, actually, it’s pretty safe to say bomb threats are far more harmful to a kid,” said Jerusha Johnson, who is a parent at the school. She said that she never expected to have to deal with this or explain to her kid why they had to evacuate the school.

“Obviously, we’re not getting into the nitty gritty details of what a bomb threat can mean or anything like that. But we are definitely telling her: There is someone who is very angry at kids, who has decided to scare everybody and make an entire community victims of fear and someone else’s childish rage.”

However, she said, she believed the school had been handling the situation as well as they could and have been transparent with information and changing safety protocols.

This newest bomb threat comes as Chabot Elementary was set to begin parent-teacher conferences next week — but have now been asked to move them to Zoom.

“I don’t think the principal, the teachers, the parents ever thought that first grade or any elementary grade is going to be the time that you have to worry about a bomb threat. That was the absolute last thing on my mind,” said Johnson.

This is an evolving situation and this story will be updated as more information becomes available.

KQED’s Billy Cruz contributed to this report.