MVHS students were released from their fourth period classes on Friday, March 14 at 10:15 a.m. after students and staff received threatening emails. Students were initially informed about the emails when Principal Ben Clausnitzer made a public address announcement at 9:43 a.m., putting MVHS into shelter-in-place. He also announced that Career Day, originally supposed to start at 9:50 a.m., was canceled.
44 adults were scheduled to speak at Career Day. According to sophomore and newly elected Associated Student Body Secretary Saanj Rao, who helped organize the event, the speakers were asked to leave campus after the first announcement. Those who were unable to leave campus evacuated with ASB officers to the front office.
Clausnitzer made an announcement at 9:59 a.m. updating students on the presence of law enforcement on campus, and at 10:03 a.m., he issued his third announcement notifying students that they would be released from school at 10:15 a.m.
(Liz Liu)
Sophomore Theeran Sathish Kumar, who was in math teacher John Conlin’s classroom, recalls that Assistant Principal Janice Chen entered Conlin’s classroom after the first announcement. Kumar says Chen was in discussion with Conlin before announcing that the class was evacuating to the library alongside the other upper E-building class.
Rao said three of the recently elected ASB class officers received the email at their FUHSD email address. She said the official club emails of some MVHS clubs such as Distributive Education Clubs of America, Monta Vista Robotics Team and Future Business Leaders of America also received the email. Rao said she received four emails from the same sender within 30 minutes, with the first email being sent around 9:30 a.m. The emails contained a graphic image and warnings that there were bombs planted on campus.
After receiving the emails, she notified Assistant Principal Anthony Nguyen, who told her the school had contacted authorities, including local police and the FBI, regarding the threats. ASB officers have not received communication or instruction from the administration since being dismissed from school, according to Rao as of 11:15 a.m. Despite recognizing the urgency of the situation, Rao says she felt relatively safe.
“I knew the threats were not real,” Rao said. “I was more concerned about the fact that I was not the only person receiving this email and even though I was able to take the incident with a grain of salt, other people might not have been able to get the same amount of support. I feel desensitized and it’s hard to believe the threats when it’s happened so many times, which could be problematic in the future.”
Correction (Mar. 15 10:24 a.m.): Only three ASB class officers received all four emails because one officer’s email address was entered incorrectly.
