Over the weekend of March 7th, while many were enjoying the warm weather, all five of Middletown High School’s portable classrooms were broken into.
A number of expensive items were stolen. The thieves took projectors and screens from the classrooms, as well as personal objects from the teachers.
On Monday morning, Spanish teacher Lisa Boyll entered her room to find her projector gone and her normally tidy room in disorder.
“You could definitely tell that somebody had been through [my room],” said Boyll.
Apart from the various school items Boyll was missing, microwave dinners from her refrigerator and a few dollars worth of peppermint patties were gone.
MHS mathematics teacher Sharon Szpara lost a projector, as did all the other portable classrooms. Szpara entered her room on Monday to find cabinets and drawers open, but the room itself was intact.
“I counted my blessings that my room was not trashed,” said Szpara. “I hated that my room was broken into and robbed, but there is so much more damage that could have been done.”
Szpara was also surprised to find that the thieves had neglected to pilfer even one of the five graphing calculators kept in her desk. She also commented that the worst damage was the thick layer of fingerprint dust left by the police during their investigation.
Boyll commented that her students found the break-in fairly distressing when she explained what had happened.
“They definitely didn’t like the fact that somebody had been through it,” she said.
Some teachers and students made light of the situation, while others criticized the lack of security.
“It was ridiculous,” said MHS Junior Clarissa Haidon. “It’s serious that someone stole the projectors, but it’s ridiculous that somebody would want them.”
Haidon has Psychology fourth period with teacher Jeffery Colsh, who was robbed of both a projector and a screen.
Acts of theft and vandalism are uncommon in areas like Middletown, but they are far from rare in the United States as a whole. There are roughly 84,000 public schools in the nation. Each year a third of these schools will report at least one act of vandalism, adding up to a total of around 99,000 individual attacks.
In total the damage to public schools due to theft or vandalism was around $200 million way back in the 1970’s, but by 1990 the total had climbed to $600 million.
Some may say that schools hold the responsibility of putting their campus under better security, but according to Boyll, the school can put up all the security that it can afford; their efforts will always be somewhat in vain.
“The school is doing everything they can,” said Boyll. “All of this technology: the locks, security cameras, swipe cards…just keeps the good people out. Someone who wants to do harm is going to do it.”
The investigation into the break-in is still on-going. Assistant Principal Donna Clabaugh is working directly with the police to catch the thieves. Even so, the people (or even person,) who broke into the portables could be just about anyone, and not necessarily a student.
However, middle or high school-aged teenagers have been found to be the most prone to destroying public property, males in particular. Public school vandalism was recently investigated with a sample of 7th to 12th grade students. The results showed that vandalism was highest in 7th grade, decreasing progressively with each grade level.
200 students in grades 4-10 completed a questionnaire on the subjects of awareness of theft, responsibility for interceding in a theft, and consequences of thievery. Eighth graders reported the highest theft rate; females showed outstanding approval for harsher penalties for theft.
Should the thieves be apprehended, their punishment is likely to be severe, considering that all of the stolen equipment will have to be replaced.
The reasons as to why the portables were robbed, or why the thieves chose to swipe oddities such as projectors and frozen dinners are still unclear. But one thing is for sure, Middletown High School will be adding its name to the list of vandalized public schools this year, making it merely one of thousands.
