This past weekend was the sixth time vandals broke into a South Los Angeles elementary school since July, causing an estimated $115,000 in damage and adding to recent losses from theft and vandalism in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Increased.
The nation’s second-largest school system has seen 171 robberies and vandalisms this school year alone, and Wadsworth Elementary School, where Monday’s press conference was held, was particularly hard hit. Officials say the damage to the entire district is in the millions of dollars a year, but they declined to give specific numbers.
LA Schools Senior Alberto Carvalho acknowledged that it’s an issue that school systems typically avoid highlighting.
Authorities are investigating the damage caused by the break-in at Wadsworth Elementary School.
(Howard Bloom/Los Angeles Times)
“You don’t want negative news, right?” Carvalho said. “We don’t necessarily talk about it, but targeting poor schools to rob, vandalize and steal is reprehensible. So we want the community to know this.” I hope someone can come forward with information.”
In Wadsworth, damages could be higher once the inventory is completed, but that may have to wait a few days because schools are on a week-long Thanksgiving break.
The break-in occurred sometime Sunday. Principal Jenny Guzman Murdock said she was at the school until Saturday.
The campus is tightly locked, but there are no security alarms, and security cameras have been installed but have not yet been installed. Some schools already have such systems in place, and some are planning to roll them out across all campuses at great expense.
The vandals apparently used heavy tools to pry open the metal-reinforced door, which was secured with a deadbolt, causing extensive damage to the door. A total of 24 rooms were broken into, Guzmán Murdoch said.
Several staff, including regional representative Maricela Almaraz, rushed to clean up and restore order at the parent center because they didn’t want parents to see the damage.
No one had yet reached the second-floor classroom, which was in disarray with crayons, books, and papers thrown on the floor and chairs overturned. Graffiti damaged the wall just outside the classroom.
Parent Berta Cuevas said the vandalism left her angry and worried.
“It seems like too much trauma is left in the kids’ brains,” said Cuevas, who was standing outside campus with her son, a third-grader, and her daughter, a first-grader. “And I don’t think that’s right. I think this school needs to have surveillance cameras on the streets and everywhere in the school.”
Cuevas praised the school for taking care of children with special needs.
Among LAUSD schools, Wadsworth Elementary School has been particularly hard hit.
(Howard Bloom/Los Angeles Times)
Keeping buildings and property safe is one more challenge added to the school system’s safety challenges.
Student activists and some parents are calling for the abolition of all school police, arguing that school funds should instead be spent on counselors, mental health and academic programs. In response to these voices, the Board of Education resolved to cut the budget for school police by 30% in 2020.
But even at its largest school police force was not large enough to patrol the vast district’s roughly 1,000 campuses 24 hours a day. Instead, a combination of measures should be used to strengthen campus security, Carvalho said.
“I think the solution is one of additional oversight, better community relations, additional information provided by community members,” he said. “We understand pretty well that these are not outsiders coming from outside the community. They are individuals who probably live in the community. And we understand that as a result of this appeal, We hope that someone who knows can bring us information.”
He called for special attention to the district’s LASAR app, which stands for Los Angeles Schools Anonymous Reporting. Carvalho emphasized that leads reported through LASAR can remain anonymous.
Stolen laptops are of little use to thieves because they are clearly marked as LA Unified property and can be shut down remotely, he added. However, if they are taken away, even if they are later thrown away, they must be replaced at considerable cost, resulting in a loss of educational funds.
Carvalho said some of the incidents appeared to be professional, “primarily driven by organized crime.” “That means copper theft and catalytic converter theft. It may help bring some people to justice.
Although no one actually monitors school security cameras, they can be useful as a deterrent and in gathering evidence after the fact. Security alarms can also act as a deterrent.
School police, even in a reduced capacity, have vacant positions. The current strategy is to use police almost exclusively for patrols and emergencies during school hours.
Los Angeles Unified has seen an increase in crime and violence since students returned to in-person learning after campus closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Even if a large group of pro-police parents voted to keep the police department, there are currently not enough police officers to patrol campuses at pre-cut levels. And outside of business hours, there’s only a skeleton crew.
The April report listed 382 police station posts, of which 323 were filled.
Carvalho said it may be necessary to deploy several police officers around the clock to sensitive areas, including bus yards, to protect assets such as buses’ catalytic converters.
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