A bomb threat was called into Tamalpais High School on Nov. 30 at around 9:30 a.m. 

Teachers and students were mandated by the administration to quickly but safely move to the Tam football field. All grades evacuated and stayed seated on the field for roughly 20 minutes, from about 10-10:20 a.m. The police then instructed everyone to walk to the Mill Valley Community Center located on Camino Alto to get picked up by parents or guardians, as school was shut down for the remainder of the day. Students were not checked out, and students left to go home.

Law enforcement did a sweep of the school grounds using K-9 units, according to multiple rounds of communication that were sent to parents and students in Parentsquare, a school-wide communication application. The school was closed until just after 2 p.m. 

“We immediately contacted our law enforcement partners and with their guidance and expertise proceeded to survey the campus for anything suspicious. Nothing was found. Our law enforcement partners do not believe there is any viable threat to campus safety,” Principal J.C. Farr stated in an email updating the Tam community. 

While there seemed to be no sense of panic during the event, there were still students and teachers who were confused by the sudden alert. 

“I was in my fifth-period class and I saw everyone urgently running out of classrooms. My teacher didn’t know what was going on until they asked a nearby teacher,” sophomore Rose Dalager said.

She explained that people were speculating it was a bomb threat, but no one seemed nervous.

 “I was pretty alarmed seeing how normal it all seemed to everyone. People were laughing and making jokes and excited to go home. I think there could be a better plan on how students could get home because most kids’ cars were at Tam,” said Dalagar.

 She feels that the school should update the students on what’s going on instead of leaving kids wanting to know more information. 

“I was in the bathroom with my friend, we were out of the classroom for just a few minutes and the only reason I knew to evacuate was because my friend from my class called me. It was super worrisome especially because I felt unaccounted for. This scares me if this happened and no one called me. I wish the teachers would pay more attention to whos out of the classroom or this could have been on the speakers,” said Junior Isa Huges. 

On Dec. 1, a second call was made with no specific threat. Several other schools in multiple states received similar messages on the same days. Law enforcement is working to see if the calls are connected. 

“We had an active shooter scare in 2020, but this is the first time I’ve been here with a bomb threat,” Farr said. 

“We have to weigh between sharing information with students and moving quickly and efficiently. Trying to move 1,600 people out of classes and away from the school as quickly as possible, everything isn’t gonna go perfectly. We want to move as quickly as we can and that being the priority sometimes everything isn’t going to go perfectly,” Farr said. 

Farr explained that they weren’t as organized with reunification with the parents as they wanted to be. 

Secretary Laura Keaton, who fielded the first call, said she could not comment on the situation at this time due to it being an ongoing investigation.