School canceled in Columbia Heights due to bomb threat

Students and staff are being told not to report to school on Feb. 2.

The Minnesota Star Tribune
February 2, 2026 at 2:55PM
Columbia Heights school board Chair Mary Granlund and Superintendent Zena Stenvik listen to attorney Marc Prokosch during a news conference on Thursday, Jan. 22, 2026. (Carlos Gonzalez/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

Classes have been called off in the Columbia Heights school district on Feb. 2 due to what officials are calling a bomb threat, police said.

The threat was emailed to several schools in the district serving about 3,400 students in Columbia Heights, Hilltop and Fridley, said Columbia Heights Police Deputy Erik Johnston in a statement.

The closure comes as 5-year-old preschool student Liam Conejo Ramos and his father from Columbia Heights were released from an ICE detention center in Texas and returned to Minnesota over the weekend.

Classes will resume on Tuesday.

“It was not possible to fully investigate the threats prior to student arrival, and a decision was made to prioritize the safety of staff and students and cancel school for the day,” the police statement said.

The move was made out of an abundance of caution, according to a statement on the district’s website and social media accounts.

Students and staff members were told not to report to any of the district’s buildings, a statement said. All programs in the north metro district are also canceled, a district spokeswoman said.

Columbia Heights police with help from Metro Transit and Minneapolis police searched the campuses that received threat.

No suspicious packages or devices were found, Johnston said.

Last month, the district moved to a flex learning day on Jan. 9 after neighboring Fridley and Minneapolis closed for a couple of days after ICE agents shot and killed Renee Good as well as after a skirmish between federal agents and community members outside Roosevelt High School in Minneapolis.

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about the writer

Tim Harlow

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Tim Harlow covers traffic and transportation issues in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, and likes to get out of the office, even during rush hour. He also covers the suburbs in northern Hennepin and all of Anoka counties, plus breaking news and weather.

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