Here you will see that the FBI counter terrorism team was spurred by that Oct 4 letter to start tracking potential threats that concerned parents posed. So no, he didn't technically call them terrorists, he just had the counter-terrorism team activated to look for terrorists.
They weren't tracking concerned parents. They were investigating threats. Unless your counterpoint is that being a parent makes you immune from scrutiny the FBI did exactly what it was supposed and did not label anybody anything unless they found a credible threat.
The NBSA sent a letter to the DOJ asking them to look into school board meetings around the country, saying that the parent protests were "equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism."
The NBSA has since apologized and removed the letter from their website.
Politifact responds by saying the word "terrorist" does not appear in the memo, thus the "domestic terrorist" claim is false. They created a straw man and then defeated it. Yeesh.
The NSBA labelled specific threats as equivalent to terrorism. Not differing opinions. Making threats can absolutely be equivalent to terrorism. Being a "concerned parent". And the accusation of this thread was against the government made this analogy. The NSBA is not a government agency. The DOJ is and the DOJ explicitly said that they were only investigating threats. Which is exactly what they're supposed to do.
"While spirited debate about policy matters is protected under our Constitution, that protection does not extend to threats of violence or efforts to intimidate individuals based on their views,” Garland wrote in a memo
That's what Garland said per your article. The only ones who mentioned terrorism was the NSBA and they didn't accuse anyone of it, they suggested some of the threats they'd received could be equivalent to terrorism. So, no Polifact is exactly correct here and the NY Post agrees.
Here you will see that the FBI counter terrorism team was spurred by that Oct 4 letter to start tracking potential threats that concerned parents posed. So no, he didn't technically call them terrorists, he just had the counter-terrorism team activated to look for terrorists.