FULLERTON : School Vandalism Measures Weighed

The janitor at Nicolas Junior High School in Fullerton begins his mornings by collecting beer cans, bottles and trash left behind by nocturnal visitors.

Groups of teen-agers gather at the center of the campus at night because buildings shield the area from view. The results, Principal Mary Dalessi told the Fullerton School District Board of Trustees on Tuesday, are mounds of refuse and walls painted with graffiti.

“It’s literally people going to the bathroom in the (school) doorways and leaving tons of trash,” Dalessi said. “We get it worse on the weekends, but we get it every night.”

After hearing recommendations on how to solve the problem, board members voted unanimously to hire someone to live on the campus year-round if the city agrees to pay half the cost.

The board also decided to work with the city to install security fencing around Nicolas and two district elementary schools.

School district and city officials have held several recent meetings to solve the growing vandalism problem at schools and parks. Both are searching for a common solution because many district schools were built with city parks attached, often with no border dividing the two.

In addition to the live-in security, the City Council will be asked to pay half the cost of fencing to be built between the three schools and neighboring parks, said Ron Hagan, Fullerton Community Services director.

The fencing will be built to deter unauthorized access to the school grounds during the day, but will permit access to play and sports equipment after school, Supt. Duncan Johnson said.

If the district hires someone to live on the campus, it will provide a space for a trailer and electricity hookup in exchange for the person to watch the campus and report suspicious activities, said William Moore, the district’s assistant superintendent for business services.

Five years ago, the district hired a couple to live in a mobile home at Sunset Lane Elementary School. Since then, vandalism at the school has dropped drastically, Moore said.

Setting up a mobile-home pad at Nicolas will cost about $17,000, and the proposed eight-foot-high, chain-link fencing will cost about $10,000 at each school, he said.

Fencing off Raymond Elementary School from neighboring Byerrum Park would help with campus security, principal Carolee Michael said.

“We have a tremendous number of people coming in from the park and just wandering around the school,” Michael said.

The park has no restrooms, so some people at the park search for restrooms at the school, she said.

“I had a bag lady in my primary girls restroom shortly after school started,” she said.

Moore also recommended that the board fund a $22,000 burglar alarm system at Valencia Park Elementary to decrease vandalism. The board said it would consider the proposal at a later meeting.

Once the new security measures are in place, the three schools will be evaluated to see which methods work best, Johnson said. Then security at other district schools will be improved using the most effective methods, he said.