A Community Problem

School is supposed to be a safe haven, an environment where children can learn and grow. But sometimes, school can be the scene of a crime that upsets the safe haven. Recently, vandals broke into a Los Angeles public school; they defaced property and damaged computers and ripped books. They also killed pet frogs that the children had raised and cared for. How does such an act of violence affect a child? How can children and teachers cope? MAURA E. MONTELLANO spoke with a Los Angeles Unified School District teacher whose class was vandalized and to a psychologist.

BENITA SPECTOR

Special education teacher at the 59th Street School, Los Angeles

As a teacher in an inner-city school in Los Angeles, I am accustomed to coming in to my classroom and finding it vandalized and the computers, printers, televisions, etc., stolen. I am used to picking up overthrown bookcases and tables; washing crayons, paint, fire extinguisher spray off the floors, walls, chalkboards and desks; filling trash cans with torn books, papers and artwork. I continue to purchase equipment and supplies from our own personal funds; Los Angeles Unified does not pay for the cost of replacing any of it.

The hardest part has always been trying to explain to young children why someone would want to destroy their classroom. We pride ourselves on providing a safe, happy place for our students, and it is difficult to reconcile the wanton destruction with the secure environment we strive so hard to maintain for them.

But the most recent episode has gone too far. Not only was the “usual” vandalism inflicted, but our classroom pets were murdered.

Frogs may not seem like much of a pet to most people, but we raised them from tadpoles, the size of a child’s fingernail. The children fed them, played with them, changed their water and cleaned the aquarium. The children were devastated. They were crying. The frogs were very important to them. They cared for them a great deal. Every week, a child was assigned as frog monitor and it was that child’s responsibility to clean out the aquarium and feed the frogs.

Who would do this? I am trying to visualize what kind of person would throw a living thing across a play yard, leaving the splattered bodies for children to find. I imagine they are the same ones who will eventually be in our courts for assault and battery, spousal and/or child abuse, or murder.

This incident may seem trivial to those of us who read in the daily papers and watch on television all the horrors that take place in our city and our world. But try looking at it through the eyes of a child. We struggled to find the right words to explain to them what happened and why. But what are we supposed to tell them?