KEES Break In

I found out Sunday afternoon that sometime after 10:00 pm on Saturday night, our school, Kelly Edwards, was broken into. I was at the open house for the new CDC building for church (which looks amazing! I know they are so excited to have it completed.) and Mrs. Clamp (the district director) informed me that Sat. night the school was broken into. She told me that I needed to go up there and check on my room. So Kevin and I left church and there were still policeman up there. They told me not to go in my room and to not touch anything. They weren't finished cleaning up the glass and taking photos. I just went to the door to look and as far as I could see, I couldn't tell there was any damage except one of my glass panes was busted so they could get the door opened. That was about 5:30. I got a call at 6:30 saying it was okay for us to go into our classrooms and clean up and check for things that were missing. I didn't have anything that was missing. They had opened this tall closest that I have, but didn't take anything out. They went through my top 2 drawers in my desk. They opened the top drawer of my file cabinet and took out some of my math files and messed some of them up. They had taken this container I had and dumped it on the floor, all I had in there was extra teacher supplies like paper clips, tape, sticky notes, etc. I had this jar of marbles on my desk that I use sometimes for things and they had dumped all them out, but that was it, besides my door. I have a door on one wall that connects to the room next to me and they had gone through there to get to the other teacher's room. They busted out the glass on all 5 classrooms on the 3rd grade wing, all 1st, 2nd, 4th, and 2 kindergarten classrooms. The 5th grade classrooms at inside the main building and they were harder to get into. They did get inside the building by going through the K5 rooms. They didn't really do anything to the inside of the school. One classroom on each wing was trashed, with everything thrown into the floor. The classroom on our wing that was trashed was the challenge room. They turned over her tables and just threw stuff on the floor. She had a tub of digital cameras and all the cameras were stolen. The teacher next to me, had a lab top that was in it's case and hidden under her computer table, they took it. But she found it in one 4th grade room. They decided to leave hers and take the one from that 4th grade room instead. One other 4th grade room, they wrote on her walls with a sharpie marker "Bloods"-which is one of the gangs that we have around here. And they wrote some stuff on her white board. She couldn't even use her classroom today. Most of it was just minor damage, not a lot was stolen. They think who ever broke in used gloves, because they found traces of the power that are in gloves in the rooms. We think it was to mostly vandalize the school, some said it could have been an initiation to a gang, but we really don't' know. They came around today and fixed our doors with new glass, so everything is a good as new. The problem with Kelly Edwards is that the school sits off the main road and no one would know that anything like this went on. There isn't any alarm system, no cameras, no fence, nothing to protect us. First-Fourth grade, are classrooms are outside on wings. Meaning you walk out my classroom and you are outside. I don't know if this will cause the board to try to get us something to help prevent this from happening again, but we had a break in last year, not as bad, and they have one just about every year. I hope they do something, but probably not. I hope it won't happen again this year. The school sat up there all summer and 2 weeks after school starts, they do this. And they didn't still any other computers or any money that teacher's knew they had in their desk, that was all still there. I also found out today that one of the first grade teachers was at the school Sat. night until 9:00 that evening and one kindergarten teacher was at the school until 10:00 that evening. Both teachers were in their rooms working. So, it happened sometime after that. Mrs. Clamp said that one of the fourth grade teachers went up to the school Sunday afternoon about 1:00 and found her classroom broken into. She called her husband who was on the board of trustees and he called Mrs. Clamp to tell her. But school went today just as though nothing had happened. I told my students what had happened. They were asking why there was no glass in the door. They were surprised and seem upset about what had happened. But I think they needed to know, they would have of found out anyway. So....pray that this doesn't happen again, that they get us some kind of protection, and that no one gets hurt. You would think, us having the "babies or little ones" that they would do something to protect them before they would the high and middle school. But I guess not. The town keeps voting against a new school because of taxes, I guess they are waiting for someone to majorly get hurt before they do. It didn't really scare me, but it made me very angry. However, I won't be going to work in my classroom anymore on the weekends. Which whenever I did last year (which wasn't often) I went during the morning or lunch time, I know doesn't make much of a difference.) I was so ticked off as I was cleaning up my mess and helping other teacher's clean up. I don't know you have ever experienced your stuff being gone through by a stranger, but it makes you feel very angry and it felt different last night as I walked into my room. But today with the kids, it was back to normal and we have all pulled together to over come this and let it not get to us. School has to go on as normal as it can.