Vandals Destroy Three Classrooms : Damage at Lancaster Elementary School Put at $400,000

Rampaging vandals wrecked furniture and equipment and set a fire that destroyed three classrooms of a Lancaster elementary school early today, causing an estimated $400,000 damage, authorities said.

Authorities found a smashed clock with its hands fixed at 3:25 a.m., apparently marking the time vandals were breaking windows, toppling computers and dumping papers and files onto the floor of six classrooms and the teachers’ lounge at Sierra Elementary School, Principal Irvine Wheeler said.

Then vandals apparently set a fire that destroyed three classrooms and caused extensive damage to a fourth in the school’s fourth-grade wing, Wheeler said.

Fire officials estimated the fire caused $350,000 in structural damage to the school. They listed an additional $50,000 damage to the contents of the school from the fire and vandalism.

School officials were notified of the damage shortly before 5 a.m., Lancaster Elementary School District Supt. Edwin Goodwin said. He canceled classes today at the school, which opened in 1956.

“It is very traumatic for students and teachers,” Goodwin said. “It looked like someone just wanted to trash the school.”

The school’s fourth-grade teachers were especially distraught by the fire, which destroyed their classrooms as well as years of accumulated teaching materials, Goodwin said. “They were just getting their rooms ready for the school’s open house,” he said.

Wheeler said he does not think any of his 800 elementary school students were involved in the vandalism.

Vandals apparently left some of their own blood on broken mirrors, windows and glass computer screens, Wheeler said. “It’s real weird,” he said.

When the school reopens later this week, students whose classrooms were destroyed will be moved to portable classrooms now sitting empty on the school grounds, Wheeler said.

The incident is under investigation by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, Deputy Ron Card said.