Sports bags lay in piles outside the girls’ locker room while students are in class, bikes sit on the bike racks unlocked and everywhere there are stories of a stolen iPods and cell phones.
Over the past few years theft has continued to a problem despite the the school’s reputation for being a safe place. The most popular item to steal are cell phones, iPods, wallets and backpacks, although this year, for the first time, larger items such as instruments from the music department and sports equipment from the team room have also gone missing.
“We have people who see an opportunity to make an easy dollar by stealing something,” said assistant principal Joe Bosco. “I get the reports that someone left their stuff out.” Bosco said the problem is carelessness, not widespread break-ins.
Bosco encourages both staff and students to lock up all personal belongings. And in some cases he has even removed students’ unlocked bikes from the bike rack to show them easy they are to steal when unlocked.
“We are still very trustworthy, which is great, but don’t trust people so much that you just leave stuff inviting people to take because people will take it,” said Bosco. “If everyone locks up their stuff, it will supply me with more time to focus on getting the people who are doing it.”
Despite his warnings, students continue to leave their things unlocked and personal items continue to be stolen. Sophomore Danielle Savage was one of many people to get her iPod stolen from her backpack in the locker room after school.
“For the first time of my high school career I decided not to leave my backpack locked in my locker so it was just sitting out underneath the bench in the locker room and [my iTouch] was in my front pocket,” said Savage. “[The thieves] took it out and they left the case and the head phones, which was really odd.”
According to Bosco, these thefts are more concerning than the bigger ones from the school because the school can’t replace a student’s belongings. However, he is confident that the the thieves will be caught and he already has some ideas of who may be behind these incidents. He believes that people may be coming in from the outside because of the openness of the campus.
“I think it’s just people with time on their hands because maybe they’re not working, and they’re walking around looking for stuff,” said Bosco. “I don’t think it’s the same person every time, but I have ideas about who did this and who did that. But as far as time and place, there is no pattern.”
While in most cases the stolen items have been left out by the owners, there have been some more concerning cases such as the stolen PE items that were locked up inside a storage closet. The administration is concerned that someone other than the staff has had a key some rooms.
For all of these problems the administration is looking into re-keying and possible improving their current system of cameras around the campus. They are also tightening security by rotating around and spot-checking areas where theft occurs more often than in the past.
“It’s definitely something that we take very seriously and it concerns me whenever anything gets stolen,” said Bosco. “It means we have dishonest people and I definitely want to get to them to educate then on the wrongs of what they are doing.”
