Armed with a megaphone and anti-mask conspiracy theories, they marched through the darkened neighborhood and toward the elementary school principal’s house.

“We’re gonna get him out,” one man shouted. “...Depriving a child of oxygen is illegal!” They recited the penal code and accused the principal of “child abuse.”

“He took the money,” a mother said, alluding to a conspiracy theory that educators were being paid off as part of the government’s attack on children. “He put it in his pocket to keep the kids in masks. We know. He took money. We know that he did.”

Now, a Sacramento-area superintendent is pleading with parents to dial down their rage after the protesters terrorized the El Dorado County school principal at his home.

In a letter to parents, Buckeye Union Elementary School District Superintendent David Roth described his “sense of shock” about the tactics a dozen-or-so protesters used when they showed up the night of Jan. 11. While spirited debates have been a hallmark of the past two years — especially in conservative El Dorado County — Roth said what happened earlier this month was unacceptable.

“As the saying goes,” Roth wrote, “we should be hard on the issues, not the people.”

While conspiracy-driven gadflies have long voiced their grievance at public board meetings, the standoff at an elementary school principal’s house signals a worrisome shift that experts say raises questions about public employees’ safety in what stands to be an especially contentious year.

That those fears are now being felt by career educators is nothing short of alarming, said Peter Simi, a sociologist at Chapman University who studies political violence and extremism. It’s also not entirely unexpected, especially given the pandemic-era threats and harassment targeting local health officials and other elected leaders, sometimes even at their homes.

“Nobody’s off limits when you’re dealing with this kind of extremism,” Simi said. “It is surprising, on the one hand, that a principal would be dealt with and treated in this manner. On the other hand, it’s really not surprising.”

Tensions had been ratcheting up days before the nighttime protest at Principal Kevin Cadden’s home in El Dorado Hills. A contingent of anti-mask, anti-vaccine activists had been rallying community members for weeks to protest outside Buckeye Elementary School in Shingle Springs.

The protest was based around Jill Boswell and her family. In a “press release” posted to Facebook earlier this month, Boswell claimed that school officials have been sending her fifth-grade son home since Nov. 18 because he refused to wear a mask.

“He doesn’t believe that God wants people covering their faces,” the statement said.

Boswell’s daughter has also been sent home, according to the statement. The family has since gained the support of a prominent California group, Let Them Breathe, that targets public health mandates in schools, particularly masks. (The group, which is fundraising for the family’s case, sued the state over its mask rules last year. A judge in November dismissed the suit.)

The Boswell family has also garnered the support of a local anti-mask, anti-mandate contingent that for months has peddled debunked conspiracy theories and derailed portions of government meetings.

In a video from one protest outside the school, Boswell described the mask mandate as “tyranny.”

(Masks can help slow the the spread of COVID-19, and claims that they harm children have repeatedly been debunked.)

Then, on Jan. 11, some members of the group headed to the El Dorado Hills neighborhood where the principal lives. As a man tried to goad Cadden out of his home, neighbors came to the principal’s defense.

“He’s not in charge of it,” one neighbor said, referring to the mask policy. “Go talk to the school board. Go talk to the superintendent. Leave the goddamn principal alone.”

Boswell posted a video of the protest on her Facebook page that showed her shouting at Cadden’s wife in the family’s driveway. She named the woman in the post and wrote, “Careful what you do…”

The post was met with swift community pushback, even among sympathizers. In the comments, people said they were appalled that Boswell and her counterparts would target an educator at home. Even those who said they agreed with the broad argument that students shouldn’t be subjected to mask mandates said the incident clearly crossed a line.

“This is gross and COMPLETELY undermines and taints what millions of families have been fighting for,” one commenter wrote.

“I’m horrified that you think this is OK,” wrote another.

Boswell’s profile and the video have since been deleted.

In a brief phone interview, Boswell defended her actions and characterized the demonstration as peaceful. To critics who said she went too far, Boswell said people should put themselves in her shoes and consider that her fight is on behalf of her children.

“All I can say is that no one can ever tell you what to do,” she said.

Boswell said she and others planned to protest outside the school “every day until the kids get a choice!

Both Cadden and Roth, the superintendent, declined interview requests for this story. In his statement to parents, Roth wrote that the extreme actions of a few — troubling as they might be — should not outweigh the support of most in an objectively difficult time.

“The culture of respect and caring in many communities has been lost to that of anger and discontent,” he wrote, “and I am most certain that is not what the families and educators of Buckeye Union desire.”

Simi, the Chapman professor, said ideologically motivated efforts to harass officials — elected or otherwise — at their homes amounts to a form of “terrorism.” Health officers in particular have been targeted throughout the pandemic. School board members and other local leaders have increasingly faced similar threats.

“I don’t blink an eye in calling this terrorism,” Simi said. “It’s politically motivated. It’s ideologically motivated. It’s intended to strike fear in the direct victim as well as send a broader message to a larger community. It’s very symbolic. And it’s intended to reach a specific goal.”

A spokesperson for the El Dorado County Sheriff’s Office said deputies have monitored the protest at the school and that “there was no law enforcement action taken.” The sheriff’s office did not respond to any official’s home.

Extremists for months have descended upon school board meetings and spun a web of conspiracies about pandemic precautions — a line that experts fear will increasingly involve non-elected school officials. Lately, that anger has spilled into course curriculum about the history of slavery under the catchall phrase “critical race theory.”

In the fall, the California School Boards Association sent a letter to Gov. Gavin Newsom sounding the alarm about “active attempts to undermine the democratic process through intimidation, threats, and violence.”

Sacramento-area board members had to “abandon” a meeting and retreat out the back door when a meeting became unsafe, according to the letter, which did not name the district. Protesters in San Diego shut down a meeting and declared themselves the “new school board,” the association wrote. School officials now undergo special training called, “Governing in a time of chaos: board meetings in the age of COVID and CRT.”

In November, a San Diego County superintendent said anti-mask activists were “stalking my home.”

The Sacramento Bee has extensively reported on the changing nature of extremism and the renewed interest in taking over local governments. Experts warn these increasingly hostile activists pose a serious threat. Some might escalate their protests and take on individual leaders, especially if they think they have the backing of a credible movement behind them.

“What we’re seeing is an amalgam of villains and hot-button issues, which get ramped up on television and online, resulting in this kind of garbage,” said Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino.

In an election year likely to prompt even more extreme reactions, and with lawmakers pushing stricter vaccine mandates for children, Levin said elected officials should consider enacting legal restrictions on picketing in front of a person’s private residence.

There’s Supreme Court precedent for it, he said, referring to a 1988 decision that upheld a municipality’s ban on anti-abortion demonstrators who protested outside a doctor’s home.

“In the past, there were a different set of villains,” Levin said. “But now there are our local election certifiers, school principals and public health officials who are facing this kind of ire at the local level. And it’s got to be dealt with.”

Wednesday night was the district’s regularly scheduled board meeting. Before it could even begin, several members of the public refused to wear face coverings. The board shut down the meeting, kicked out those who wouldn’t comply with the health order, and reconvened the meeting 30 minutes later via Zoom.

A handful of callers criticized the district and threw their support behind Boswell. One brought up critical race theory.

But many more in the public comment portion of the meeting spoke fondly of the principal and chided the protesters who have staked out the school in recent weeks.

Cadden was “the thesis of what a good role model looks like,” one woman said. Another said the protesters who show up at the school have harassed other kids on campus and “crossed the line multiple times.”

Kelly Holmstrom is a parent with a student who attends Buckeye Elementary. She said the disruption must stop before any more damage is done.

“It is distracting,” Holmstrom told the board. “It is quite frankly scary for some of the younger kids on our campus who have now heard that their principal is being accused of child abuse.”