The thieves who broke into the Alexander Henderson Elementary in the wee hours of Friday morning came through the roof above at least 10 classrooms, Deputy St. Croix Superintendent Janine Schuster has revealed.
After the break-in was realized, students who were already at school were immediately relocated to other parts of the campus because the fiberglass in the ceiling of the affected classes were dislodged, forcing the leadership of Henderson Elementary to dismiss school as a precautionary measure.
Education Commissioner Donna Frett-Gregory expressed her disgust with the continued vandalizing of schools; however, she was pleased that the damage was minimal, and valuable school equipment remained intact. Frett-Gregory was also unhappy about having to find resources in an already-constrained budget to repair the damages, and made mention of regaining the “instructional time” lost on Friday.
“It is abhorrent that our schools and students continue to be targeted by criminals looking to steal what they can from our classrooms,” Frett-Gregory said Friday. “In this instance, we were fortunate to have suffered few losses in terms of equipment, but once again, we are now responsible for making repairs to our facilities that we can ill-afford with our limited resources, and figuring out how to cover the instructional time lost because of today’s incident.”
She continued: “It is not acceptable, and I encourage anyone in our community with information about the Henderson break-in to report it immediately to the proper authorities. We must stand together against this kind of activity.”
Schuster and the District maintenance team will continue working throughout the weekend, preparing classrooms and the campus for Monday. A police investigation is ongoing.
Tags: alexander henderson, school
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