Our two reporters here at LA School Report, Craig Clough and Mike Szymanski, both have kids in school. What they don’t have is a shared opinion about LA Unified’s decision on Tuesday to close down schools in response to an emailed threat of violence that proved to be empty.

So here, in a reasoned conversation, are their views on the situation:

Q: What did you think when you heard all the LAUSD schools were being closed due to a terror threat?

SZYMANSKI: I was getting Donovan ready for middle school, when my sister (who teaches at the school) went in early only to learn there was a Level 1 threat alert and no one could enter the school. She stayed to help parents and kids, explaining that school was closed for the day.

Of course, after watching the televised press conference and making a few phone calls and posting a story, I went back up to check on the young teenager. He was back in bed with the covers pulled up. He had been ready for finals that he studied for late the night before and had a project ready to turn in.

“Are you glad you’re not going to school?” I asked

“Yeah, I guess, it sounds pretty crazy out there,” he answered. “It’s a day off.”

CLOUGH: I have a daughter in a transitional kindergarten program at a school in Pasadena. We were in the car about five minutes away when I heard over the radio that all LA Unified schools had been closed due to an emailed terror threat.

Pasadena wasn’t mentioned in the report, but it is certainly close enough to LA to be alarmed — if there were anything to be alarmed about. My reaction to the news? I drove her to school, dropped her off and waved goodbye.

Coordinated terrorist attacks don’t come with a preview warning. There was certainly no warning before 9/11, no warning before the San Bernardino shootings, no warning before the Boston Marathon bombing and no warning before the Paris attacks. I dropped my daughter off because of all the bad things I knew that could happen in the LA area that day, a coordinated terrorist attack on schools was clearly not going to be one of them.

Q: Was it the right decision to close all district schools?

SZYMANSKI: I’ve heard parents say they were inconvenienced; I heard other critics say LAUSD overreacted, but then I saw at the press conferences the faces of the school board, Ramon Cortines and the mayor and the sheriff, and I knew they had the best interest of our kids in mind. None of the school board members or Cortines have kids going to district schools, but they all have people close to them attending the schools and working there.

LAPD police chief Charlie Beck said it best when he pointed out that the officials should treat the situation as if it were their own kids. I think that’s what the district did. In covering these school officials with different opinions on everything, but where they come together is the safety of all the children.

Were I to have heard the threat made that morning? I probably would have kept Donovan home, for just a day, just in case, out of the “abundance of caution,” as the district did.

CLOUGH: Michael O’Hare, a professor at UC Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy, said this of the decision: “What L.A. demonstrated was leadership incompetent to make good decisions, willing to say nonsense and manage with slogans.”

I think that is putting it nicely.

Now that we’ve had a chance to read the full, ridiculous, stupid email, it is easy to see this was the kind of short-sighted, penny-wise-but-pound-foolish decision that helps you win the battle but lose the war.

Whoever becomes the next superintendent, it’s going to be 10 times harder for him or her to close down the district in the face of another threat, even if the next email carries a little more credibility. And since the closures made headlines around the world, every whacko, nut job and actual ISIS jihadist with an Internet connection just saw exactly how much panic they can cause with a single email. The chance of the district’s receiving similar threats just went up a thousandfold, and this decision did not make the district’s kids safer.

Q: Do Angelenos, district parents and teachers support the decision? 

SZYMANSKI: It’s unfair to second guess LA Unified’s decision. I think it made the schools safer to be able to test-run their emergency systems. I think officials found some holes in the system that will be fixed if, and when, this happens again. For everyone, it was a major inconvenience, but, wow, did the city come together.

LAUSD school board president Steve Zimmer and I chatted about how amazing all the elements came together. The FBI jumped in, 13 police agencies helped with the school sweeps, the Metro system let kids ride for free, museums agreed to let kids in for free that day, libraries stayed open late, and some places fed the kids that wouldn’t get their lunch that day. The press conferences had every major safety official in the city right there, talking to the public, allaying fears.

A lot of us in the press corps have kids who were affected. Many of us were angry, and wanted answers. I just hope that this doesn’t have anyone else afraid to do the same thing, thinking it’s another “cry wolf” false alarm.

I can’t help but think a few years ago when Donovan was in elementary school and the news of the Sandy Hook shootings happened right in the middle of the school winter concert. Parents were buzzing, texting and answering phones and upsetting the kids. One teacher told her kids briefly what happened and then said, “The show must go on, big smiles, let’s sing!” Kids from that class are still seeing therapists about that incident.

We live in a world where we can’t shelter our kids from things like this now. We have to figure out how to talk to them about it better. I do feel safer knowing, though, that we have a school system looking out for the safety of our kids, even if it is to an excess.

CLOUGH: While I don’t agree at all with the decision, the thought of violence against children is so horrifying I think most people would support a decision that in the moment seemed like the safest bet. I do think my opinion is perhaps in the minority, and may even offend some.

Yesterday, I was sitting at a park bench watching my daughter play when a man with a baby in his arms approached and struck up a conversation. His other daughter was playing with mine and he was very friendly and talkative. We chatted about the neighborhood for five minutes before he asked me if I had heard about the LAUSD school closings.

As I shared with him my views, the man got quieter and mumbled something along the lines of, “Yeah, I would just hate to be the guy who has to make the decision. I think you play it safe and close down.” I countered with why it didn’t make us safer. He seemed unconvinced.

After his baby made a slight noise, he got up, and wandered off without even a “nice to meet you.” I’m thinking he didn’t agree with me.

Brad Sherman

Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Los Angeles) issued a statement today that released more details from the email threat that closed all of LA Unified schools yesterday. He also explained why authorities in Los Angeles and New York ultimately reached the same conclusion, that the threat was not credible.

The full wording of the email has not yet been released, but Sherman and several leaders in both cities have publicly discussed some of the details. The decision to close all LA Unified schools has become controversial in light of New York schools’ receiving a similar threat, with city officials deciding to keep schools open — while openly criticizing LA leaders.

Sherman, who represents parts of the San Fernando Valley and is also the former chair of the House Subcommittee on Terrorism and a senior member of House Foreign Affairs Committee, pointed out that the emailer claimed to have 32 accomplices in Los Angeles, while in the slightly different email to New York, claimed to have 138 accomplices.

“To think that there would be a conspiracy in Los Angeles involving 33 individuals, including the email author, without the federal government having at least heard enough to raise the threat level is somewhat unlikely,” Sherman said. “To think that there would be a conspiracy in the New York area involved 139 active shooters ready to act on a single day, all without the federal government at least raising the threat level, is not credible at all.”

While the emailer claimed to be a student of the “Los Angeles Unified district,” which is terminology that someone familiar with the Los Angeles schools would use, the emailer also claimed to be a student of the “New York City School District,” which is not terminology someone familiar with NY schools would use, Sherman said.

Sherman also said there are three reasons to believe the emailer is not a devout Muslim as was claimed:

• The Los Angeles email says it is “from” an email name that includes an obscene word for a body part. No devout Muslim, nor a Muslim extremist claiming to be devout, would use such an email name.
• The email contains several typos but most significantly fails on one occasion to capitalize the word “Allah.” A devout Muslim, or an extremist Muslim claiming to be devout, would be careful to capitalize the word “Allah.”
• The email does not read like any of the missives from Islamic extremists. It does not quote any portion of the Quran nor allude to any incident in the life of Muhammad. The author of the email does not demonstrate any understanding of Islam.

Sherman also said the emailer claimed to have nerve gas, which he said is not credible.

When discussing the email with reporters, NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton joked that he thought the author was a fan of the Showtime television series “Homeland,” which was likely a reference to the threat of nerve gas. This season of the show, which concludes on Sunday, involves terrorists attempting to release nerve gas in Berlin while issuing advance warnings through the media.

“In reviewing it, I think the instigator of the threat may be a ‘Homeland’ fan … it [the threats made] mirrors a lot of the recent episodes of ‘Homeland,'” Bratton said, according to the New York Post.

Sherman’s statement also said the decision faced by LA officials and New York officials was not on an equal level. LA received the threat several hours before New York, making it easier for New York officials to conduced the email was not credible.

Sherman also said, “Just because some portions of each email appear to be false does not mean that school officials could conclude that all of the assertions in the email are false, nor could they assume there was not some plot to kill some students at some schools.”

LA Unified Board President Steve Zimmer at this afternoon’s press conference

LA Unified officials said tonight that all district schools have been declared safe and will reopen tomorrow.

The decision was made after law enforcement officials determined that an email foretelling violent acts across the district was judged to be “not a credible threat” by investigators, in the words of Mayor Eric Garretti, who joined city and regional officials at an early evening news conference.

The announcement brought an end to one of the most challenging days in LA Unified history, causing anxiety and inconvenience to hundreds of thousands of families who send their children to the district’s 1,100 schools. The officials said 2,780 law enforcement personnel had swept 1,531 school sites to determine that all schools were safe for the resumption of instruction.

However, as Garcetti warned, the opening of schools does not bring an end to the episode. He objected to characterizing the email as a “prank” or a hoax,” suggesting instead it could be a case of “criminal mischief or testing true vulnerability of the district.”

“We sure hope we catch who is responsible,” he said. “At best someone was engaged in extreme criminal mischief, a serious crime. Somebody needs to pay for that. If they were testing our vulnerability, we did a pretty good job of responding.”

The mayor said the threat came to LA Unified’s board president, Steve Zimmer, at 10 pm Monday night. Zimmer immediately contacted law enforcement, and it quickly led to a collaboration involving the FBI, country agencies, the Los Angeles Police Department and the district’s police department.

After hours of work, they presented information early in the morning to Ramon Cortines, who had stepped down three days before as district superintendent, to make a decision about opening schools.

Cortines closed them, a decision that was roundly supported by the various law enforcement agencies, particularly in light of the terrorist attack two weeks ago in San Bernardino. Others questioned the decision as an overreaction, giving into fear.

“Anything can be viewed through a mirror to question the information we have now,” said LA Police Chief Charlie Beck. “It wasn’t available this morning.”

He added, “If you knew what superintendent knew would you have sent your child to school? Every parent I know I’ve talked to said no. People want to know you treat my kids like you do your own.”

Cortines said closing the schools was a decision made “out of an abundance of caution and to ensure safety and security in our schools. We now must get back to the business of educating our kids.”

He said schools would have crisis counselors available “for students and employees who may need additional support.”

He thanked all the agencies who works on the issue today, and the district identified some of them:  he FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the LA Police Department; LA County Sheriff’s Department; California Highway Patrol; the Departments of Police Services at the University of California and Cal State-Northridge; and the police departments from Long Beach, San Fernando, Bell, Gardena, Hawthorne, Huntington Park, Inglewood and South Gate.

Tom Torlakson, the state Superintendent of Public Instruction, said he was “nearly 100 percent certain” that the district could recoup about $29 million it would lose as a result of the loss of a day of instruction.

“I praise the exemplary coordination, you all should be proud,” Torlakson said. “I don’t know how you’re all still standing.”

Privately, after the press conference, Zimmer, who hadn’t slept all last night and was in meetings all day, said, “You can tell from the bags under my eyes and they way I’m talking that I’ve not had much sleep. I am surprised I’m still standing.”

LA Unified school board president Steve Zimmer speaks at a news conference

The LA Unified school district made the rare move today of closing all of its campuses after receiving a terror threat.

Superintendent Ramon Cortines has asked for police to search every building — a major operation considering the district has over 1,100 campuses. The move also comes as New York officials said they received a similar threat but have determined it was a hoax.

Check out our Storify feed below for live updates via Twitter, Facebook and other social media accounts about the school closings.