Police said the threat was called in to a school board member.
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In Los Angeles, all LAUSD schools will be searched by the end of the day, officials said.
“We get threats all the time…I think the circumstances in the neighboring San Bernardino, I think what is happening nationally…I am not going to take a chance with the life of a student”, he said in a press conference.
Schools police Chief Steven Zipperman said an electronic threat “mentioned the safety of all of our schools”. There are 900 public schools, 187 charter schools and more than 27,000 teachers. He said they learned later that other cities, like NY, also received threats. Beck defended that decision.
The superintendent said the district police chief informed him about the threat shortly after 5 a.m.
Students already at school were sent home, officials said, and families rushed to come up with alternate plans.
This comes just a few weeks after a shooting in San Bernadino, California, that killed 14 people.
He said the threat was contained in an email sent from overseas, purporting to be from a jihadist, but his department was investigating it as a “hoax” for a number of reasons, including the language used by the author. It has more than 650,000 students enrolled in kindergarten through 12th grade, with some 250,000 more in adult education programs.
Lee Stein, parent of a fifth grader at Ivanhoe Elementary School, said he heard about the closure via a news alert to his phone, which he confirmed by calling the principal.
Authorities in New York City said they received the same threat but quickly concluded that it was a hoax.
A law enforcement official briefed on the investigation said the threat involved bombs in students’ backpacks.
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The district spans 1,865 square kilometres and encompasses Los Angeles as well as all or part of more than 30 smaller cities and other areas. According to a morning press conference, the threat was “rare” enough for the school district to take action.
