Threat leads many students to stay home

Danette Goulet

COSTA MESA - An anti-Semitic bomb threat found scrawled on the girls’

bathroom wall on Tuesday has led many parents to call Costa Mesa High

School to let the school know that they will keep their children home

today.

“I’ve had a million parents call and say their children won’t be

here,” said Steve Pavich, assistant principal at the school. “I fully

expect there will be students who won’t be here.”

Whether the threat that read “Nazi punks will blow up this school on

Friday the 13th” was a pre-spring break hoax, a Friday the 13th gag, or a

real and dangerous threat, some parents aren’t willing to take a chance

despite the extra precautions the school is taking.

After two female students found the threatening message scribbled on a

bathroom wall Tuesday, they reported it to school officials who have

since requested extra security in the forms of Costa Mesa Police and an

outside security agency.

“We’re going to be doing nighttime security beginning at 5 p.m.

[Thursday],” said Jaime Castellanos, assistant superintendent of

secondary education. “And police officers will be on and about campus all

day Friday.”

The security agency and the Costa Mesa Police were set to do an

extensive search of the campus overnight including an inspection of all

lockers, Pavich said.

Today, police will be at the front and back of the school to greet and

reassure any parents and students who do show up for school, Pavich said.

Gates will also be locked behind students, but no student will be locked

out, he added.

“We have virtually 100 staff here, actually more like 120 -- all of

those eyes will be very much alert [today],” he said.

Pavich said he expected all staff would show up for school.

As for the Nazi reference, Pavich said he doesn’t know of any such

groups on campus.

While district officials must take these threats seriously, they feel

it may still be backlash from the recent school shootings in Santee and

El Cajon.

“Typically what will happen is, it’s on the tail end of a Columbine

thing -- kids just trying to see what kind of reaction they can get or

to get out of school,” Castellanos said.

It is a phenomenon not unknown to the Newport-Mesa Unified School

District in the past months.

Just last week, a ninth-grade boy from Corona del Mar High School was

arrested for making terrorist threats against a female classmate.

Mere weeks before that, two other Corona del Mar students were

suspended for allegedly making milder threats.

A seventh-grade student was suspended after allegedly drawing a

picture of a teacher with an arrow through it in an art class.

The next day, a second student was suspended after officials heard

reports that he allegedly made threats.