New York City Parents Petrified About Ongoing Bomb Threats to Specialized High School By Gillian Telling

Parents and students at The Brooklyn Latin School — one of eight highly selective, specialized high schools across the city — have been dealing with repeated violent threats toward the students since last spring, with seemingly no end in sight.

I’m one of the frustrated and frightened parents. My son is a sophomore at the school, and I’m part of a large group of people who feel this has gone way beyond a prank — especially with the no-phone ban in schools, which I fully support. But after each evacuation, parents don’t know whether the 800 kids at Brooklyn Latin, and another 600 in the middle and high schools it shares a building with, are safe until we finally get a text saying so.

The bomb threats first began toward the end of the 2024-2025 school year, and initially, they were assumed to be a student prank — someone trying to get out of a Latin or math quiz. But when school resumed in 2025 after Labor Day, so did the threats. Their frequency increased, and the calls began to include threats about fires and stabbings.

Because the calls came from an untraceable number through a VPN, detectives at the 90th precinct in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, have said they are limited in what they can do — other than conduct sweeps of the school to make sure there are no credible threats.

“They all seem resigned to the fact that other than sending sweeps, nothing can be done,” a frustrated parent tells PEOPLE of the NYPD. When the parent questioned whether the FBI could help, the parent said an officer suggested that they “call the FBI themselves,” the parent said.

On Nov. 5, the NYPD hosted a town hall for the frustrated school community where officers again reiterated they had limited ability to stop the threats. Officers encouraged the community to call in any tips.

In a follow-up email to the town hall, the NYPD’s Deputy Commissioner for Public Information said only, “There are no arrests and the investigation remains ongoing.”

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On Dec. 8, a new threat was called in; on Dec. 9, two consecutive bomb threats were called in on the same morning.

One father says that when he raised his concerns, the detective said, “he should take his kid to a school in Manhattan” instead of Brooklyn — even though Brooklyn Latin is one of the highest-ranked public schools in the city.

Mother Anissa Rodriguez, whose son is in his third year at Brooklyn Latin, tells PEOPLE, “Not only was this his first choice for a specialized high school, but it is also one of the top rated schools in the nation and in New York. It is very nerve-wracking and disappointing that they are currently being targeted by constant bomb threats and the local police have yet to have control of the situation.”

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When reached for comment, DOE Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos said in a statement, “The safety of our students and staff is our very top priority. We take every threat extremely seriously, including working directly with our local law enforcement partners, to keep every person in our community safe.”

But the responses have failed to quell the parents’ fears.

“Our school community has been dealing with repeated bomb threats and the constant fear that one of them could be real,” one parent tells PEOPLE.

“What’s even harder is feeling like the response hasn’t matched the seriousness of the situation. After so many incidents and school sweeps, we still haven’t seen the coordinated action we expected from the NYPD, and the FBI has not stepped in. We’re simply asking for a thorough, urgent investigation and real assurance that our children are being protected.”

When reached for comment, the FBI noted that it couldn’t comment on the record, but would hopefully send a statement once the agency had reassessed the situation.

The school’s students are equally fed up with having so many of their school days disrupted. One tells PEOPLE, “We really just need this to stop.”