Teachers clean up vandalized classrooms

McKinley Avenue Elementary School in South Los Angeles is wrapped with a spiked iron fence. Its windows are shuttered with wire frames and its offices are equipped with motion sensors linked to an alarm.

None of those measures, however, was enough to stop vandals who broke into the school during the holiday vacation.

Whoever it was -- officials suspect a group of adolescents -- used metal cutters to bypass wire-shuttered windows, broke into the school’s boiler room, made his or her way into 13 classrooms, the library and several offices, urinated on floors, drew on walls, tossed ketchup and mayonnaise on computers, took a few electronics and generally torpedoed the school.

“Every time we have a long weekend or a long break, schools are hit,” said Tony Gonzalez, local district director of school services. Gonzalez, who was on campus Wednesday as cleanup got underway, said the chaos left behind was the worst he had ever seen.

The break-in was one of nearly 60 reported incidents of vandalism in the last two weeks at L.A. Unified School District campuses, said school Police Lt. Timothy Anderson. Break-ins ranged from seemingly professional operations, in which thieves targeted computers and electronics, to childish pranks, where an empty school became a playground for mischief-makers, he said.

L.A. Unified police say about 400 burglaries occur at campuses each year, resulting in millions of dollars in property damage and stolen equipment. During the 2006-07 winter break, authorities reported break-ins at 19 campuses; during the 2005-06 break, 63 were reported.

At McKinley, the damage was so extensive that school officials believe whoever broke into the campus during the break came back again and again until Friday, when school police noticed the vandalism, officials said.

The school has been vandalized several times, including a major break-in during the fall, said administrator Raymond Boutney, adding that he is frustrated by the “inability of the community to assist us in capturing the culprits who continue to do this to our school.”

Officials still can’t say why the school’s motion sensors didn’t trigger the alarm, Principal Gwendolyn Williams said. Some sensors were torn down and the main control system -- which should have set off the alarm before anyone got to it -- was tampered with, she said.

Empty schools and understaffed school police can add to the break-in problem, police said. Holiday staffing, with many officers on vacation, is “kind of thin to say the least,” Anderson said. Last year, school police officials said about half of all break-ins took place during long weekends or the winter, spring and summer vacations.

Police are making moves to fight the problem, Anderson said. They’ve put up posters asking students to alert authorities to vandalism, and a recent grant will help them distribute magnets with the same message, he said.

Whether those programs will make a dent in the problem is unclear, officials said.

On Wednesday, rather than spend the day learning teaching techniques alongside UCLA writing experts, as was planned, teachers spent the day cleaning classrooms in preparation for Monday, when students are set to return.

They made quick progress in the morning hours -- painting over rows and rows of spray-painted pornographic images and derogatory terms in just minutes. The school became infused with the scent of ammonia as the teachers washed away signs of disruption.

“I have to get set up here quick. I don’t want the kids to see it like this,” said fourth-grade teacher Celest Danley.

Earlier in the day, she found papers tossed wantonly around her classroom, ketchup splattered on walls and broken bits of Christmas ornaments on the floor.

Although some laptops, VCRs, cameras and boomboxes were taken, it seemed that the vandals appeared mostly intent on making a mess, not taking valuable property, said Williams, who has headed the school for 12 years. Several new computers and other valuable equipment went untouched while a pile of notebooks filled with students’ stories was destroyed with ketchup.

“It seems adolescent,” Williams said.

For Danley, the incident underscores the important role teachers have in shaping the lives of young people -- and deterring them from mischief.

“We need to reach as many kids as possible when they are young so that this type of thing will not happen,” she said.

But it can be difficult to know what motivates someone to break into a school, Williams said.

“Sometimes it’s young people who are disenfranchised,” she said. “Sometimes it’s just young people who are looking for a thrill.”

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paloma.esquivel@latimes.com