I woke up early on Sunday to accomplish as much as I possibly could in one day before the rush of school started again on Monday. I had to unpack, do laundry, clean, and complete what seemed to be a thousand other random things. Not to worry, I was able to have the Vikings game on while I lesson planned... although I live in Texas, I am still true to the Vikings (especially when they are winning). I went to bed Sunday prepared for what I expected to be an unruly bunch of students coming off of a long Thanksgiving break. If the students were going to be "wound-up," I was going to be even more prepared to be able to be an effective teacher.
No matter how prepared I was for Monday, I wasn't ready for what I was about to see when I walked into my classroom...
I arrived at my school at about 6:35am on Monday. I signed in at the office and walked back to my "classroom." It was still a little dark out so after I unlocked the door I turned on the light. My room seemed a little out of place. I first noticed that my LCD projector and elmo (modern over-head projector) cart was moved by the door with all the chords rolled up on it. Everything was unplugged, but this wasn't too strange. I was absent on Monday and Tuesday before break so another teacher might have borrowed them when I was in Minnesota.
I turned to look closer. My laptops were missing from my "interactive math station." Again, I thought someone might have borrowed them, but as I looked closer I began to notice they weren't "borrowed" at all... they had been stolen. I saw blood on my station table and another blood print on the wall. The table had been pulled out and my shelf was moved. Behind the shelf the Ethernet chords for the laptops had been cut and ripped out of the wall. My computer speakers were also missing...
Blood on the wall behind my shelf
Blood on the table
Cut Ethernet Chord and Broken Chord = No Internet :(
The police came to my classroom at around 9:45am to check out the crime scene. The school called them... I am not really sure why, because the officer basically told me that they weren't going to be able to do anything. A projector and Elmo were also stolen from another teacher's room at my school. They are thinking the robberies are related, even though the other room is on the other side of the school grounds.
I suspect the robber(s) came in through the window, as one of my students noticed more blood on the outside of my classroom by the window and blood on the blinds inside my room. The window was not broken though... so they must have taken it out or somehow prided it open.
It is really frustrating to me that someone would steal from a school, especially the school that I work at. I know how much those laptops meant to my students and how much they enjoyed learning on them (don't tell them they were learning... they got to play math and science "games" on them sometimes). It might be different if they were just stealing from me, but stealing from 39 fifth grade students?! That I do not understand.
Our classroom will continue to progress without the laptops and other equipment that was lost, but it was a serious blow to my morale.
Learning took place long before computers... and it will continue without them.
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