Editors note: This school is not located in the South Bay Union School District.

NATIONAL CITY, Calif. – Parents in the South Bay attended an informational school safety meeting. This comes the same day as Lincoln Acres Elementary held classes remotely due to a threat called into the school.

It’s a good day for big sister Madison Barreda. She’s feeling grateful to play outside the elementary school with her three younger brothers Wednesday after quite the scare.

“It made me want to cherish my brothers even more because you never know what’s going to happen,” shared Madison Barreda, who is a student at Granger Junior High School which is within the Sweetwater Union High School District.

“It’s a parent’s worst nightmare. You take them to school, to learn, to be safe,” said parent Maria Figueroa, whose young daughter attends TK at the school.

Parents are now breathing a sigh of relief after shocking news over the weekend when getting a notice in the mail. It warned of a bomb threat toward the campus with the target date set for Wednesday, Oct.18.

“You can’t help but think…is it true, is it a joke? Is it not a joke?” Figueroa said.

Police later confirmed they’ve found hard evidence that points to an 11-year-old as the person responsible while reassuring parents the child has been arrested.

“This is not typical behavior of a child that age, so this is a signal that a child is struggling with something,” shared Dr. Diana Robbins, who is a child psychologist.

The school was made known of the threat early September. National School District Superintendent Dr. Leighangela Brady said since then, the district has worked closely with law enforcement to keep students out of harm’s way.

“Of course, you hear about threats across the nation, and it always puts us on high alert, so we try to learn from each one of those tragedies so we can be as safe as possible,” Brady said. 

FOX 5 reached out to the National City Police Department on the status of the investigation to which they’ve responded saying in part, “…the active threat posed to one of our elementary schools has been mitigated. Nevertheless, it is important to note that this sensitive investigation remains ongoing, and no further details will be disclosed at this time.”

“I think it is very important that parents talk to their children about the severity of making threats because you can see just how serious we took this, and a lot of students were impacted, a lot of families were impacted,” Brady said.

Police say they are working closely with local, state, and federal agencies to investigate this crime. They have yet to confirm whether or not the 11-year-old who made the threat is a student at the school or within the district.