After a recent spate of vandalism at McKinley Elementary School, the district has installed multiple high-tech security cameras at strategic points around the kindergarten campus.
On the first day of Thanksgiving break, McKinley principal Angie Linn received a call from the school’s custodian. One of the outdoor tables — a circular mesh-metal picnic table — had been overturned and its steel frame permanently fractured.
“That was the straw that broke the camel’s back,” said Linn. “We just got those tables; they were brand new in August, and $900 apiece. Since we got them, the teachers had been taking the kids to do lessons outside. And the kids will sit out there over recess sometimes. Or they’ll have their snack outside on those tables. So it was a treat for us to have them.”
In the weeks leading up to the holiday break, faculty and staff at McKinley began to encounter signs of fresh destruction: shingles torn from the storage shed; holes bored into the concrete surface of the school itself; the wooden planks forming the wheelchair ramp on the school’s south side were smashed to bits; profanity was scrawled onto the building as well as the playground equipment; large divots — deep enough to reach the insulation — were gouged into the exterior of the school’s adjacent trailer, which the kindergarten uses as a classroom space; and the internet cable leading to that trailer was severed.
The real coup de grace, however, was probably the moment when, immediately upon learning of the destroyed picnic table, Linn and her colleagues went to check the footage from the single security camera that has towered over McKinley’s playground for more than a year — and found that the vandals had cut its cable, too.
“PART OF our five-year plan is to continue to increase security at all of our schools,” said the district’s assistant technology director, Sean Linn. “But the vandalism at McKinley spurred us to install these new cameras now.”
Linn explained that the new, higher-grade multi-cam system, whose footage is automatically stored in an offsite location, will permit administrators to access the relevant visual data even if the perpetrators succeed in destroying one or more of the onsite cameras.
“We’ve really been ramping up our security across the district these last three years,” said Linn, who is also the district’s crisis management director (as well as Angie Linn’s husband). “You can guarantee that if you’re parking in a parking lot that is on our property, we’re watching. If you’re walking in any door, that door is covered. If you’re walking into an office, we’re recording audio and video. Playgrounds, bike racks — it’s pretty extensive.”
ON THURSDAY, Angie Linn walked the playground at McKinley Elementary, pointing out the damage wrought by the unapprehended culprits and the dogged repair work her maintenance crew has been performing in the vandals’ wake. A large group of kindergartners were at recess, playing in the yard. “Hi, Mrs. Linn!” “Watch us, Mrs. Linn!”
“It was so sad when they broke that table,” said Linn, who began her career at McKinley, as a teacher, when she was just 21. “All these other little things, I know, they happen. But dang — I saved money all last year to get those tables. I was trying to make us equitable with the other schools, who have tables. I was so upset. I just felt hurt, you know? I want my kids here to be able to have nice things, too.”
A little boy, who moments before had been using his heavy winter coat as a cape, approached Linn.
“What are you doing, Mrs. Linn?”
“Just taking some pictures,” said Linn.
“Some pictures of what?” he said.
