OAKLAND — Officials are urging parents to practice caution and healthy skepticism after a pair of phone-scam attempts against families of students at one Oakland middle school in recent weeks.

According to Oakland Unified schools spokesman John Sasaki, the first attempt happened during the first week of school Aug. 22, when two parents got calls claiming their children had been kidnapped and demanding payment of ransom to get them back.

Another incident occurred during the Labor Day-shortened school week when a man got a call claiming his granddaughter had broken her nose and needed medical attention.

In a statement, Oakland Unified School District Police Chief Jeff Godown praised the adults’ impulses to verify, rather than blindly comply. “These families did the right thing,” Godown said.

Parents should call schools and then police dispatch at 510-874-7777, and make sure not to share personal or financial information with callers, Godown added.

In each case, adults did the right thing and called schools to confirm children were safe and in class, Sasaki said.

“The fortunate thing is this sounds very isolated, and this hasn’t happened again this week,” Sasaki said Thursday afternoon. “Maybe they just tried it and it didn’t work, but we just want our families to be aware that this sort of thing is possible.”

Sasaki said he didn’t think the new school year’s start was a likely peg for the scammer calls.

Though district officials have reached out to administrators at all Oakland schools, no similar cases have been reported in Oakland Unified, Sasaki said.

However, there have been similar cases in other school districts.

In one case, a Milpitas parent wired a small amount of money after receiving a call last month claiming her daughter had been kidnapped and taken to Mexico.

Union City police handled a similar incident July 27 but were able to immediately debunk the call.

Union City police Lt. Matias Pardo said Thursday the callers claim to have the kids and “are holding for ransom.”

“We were able to determine fairly quickly that it was unfounded, but nonetheless it is a scary call to get.”

Though Pardo called real kidnappings extremely rare, he urged adults who get such calls to keep calm, reach out to law enforcement and try to reach vulnerable family members through other channels.

“Unfortunately, we have to treat everything as real until we can determine it’s not,” Pardo said.

Contact George Kelly at 408-859-5180.