The news was sickening and the photograph on the front page of
this newspaper drove the news from our brains into the pits of our
stomachs.
The news was sickening and the photograph on the front page of this newspaper drove the news from our brains into the pits of our stomachs.
Local classrooms were savaged by vandals, and in the photograph a teacher wearing a protective mask sorts through the rubble of what was a classroom.
The devastation was so thorough that affected classes were moved. Five rooms were essentially unusable. R.O. Hardin principal Linda Smith said, “It looked like a bomb went off.”
Also last week, two boys brought an extremely authentic-looking airsoft toy gun to school and allegedly fired it. Recently in Santa Cruz County vandals burned down a high school library.
Are schools becoming the magnet to act out extreme anger? That question is bigger than us; we only know the news is continually sickening regarding acts of violence either on property or on the grounds of schools.
We do know this regarding the trashing of the R.O. Hardin and Calaveras classrooms: three boys, ages 10, 11, and 12 were apprehended. One of their mothers said she had no idea where her child was or what he was up to over the weekend.
If these are, in fact, the boys responsible for the damage, punishment is obviously in order. But just as important, and possibly moreso, is that these kids somehow need to be made to understand how their acts have affected others, physically and mentally. One young student whose class was ruined made the comment that even if the room is restored, what will stop vandals from coming back?
Our schools should not have to answer these types of questions. Our schools are supposed to be learning centers. They should be in the news for achievement. The children responsible for the damage to our local schools last weekend should be made to sit and study the photograph of a teacher tending to her destroyed classroom.
