Students Restoring Damaged Campus

One month after a senior prank left James Monroe High School in North Hills with broken saplings, profanity-laced walls, a ruined lawn and gummed up door locks, students planted a new tree Wednesday as a symbolic first step in the campus’ recovery.

With shovels of mulch and soil, students replaced a jacaranda destroyed June 28, along with six other trees and other property when at least eight students climbed a fence and, in the words of Principal Gregory J. Vallone, “really did a number on us.”

“To have kids do this was demoralizing,” Vallone said. “They threw some kind of acid on the lawn and drew a picture of something you don’t want to know.”

The students, who face felony vandalism charges, also splattered purple paint on a set of double doors, splashed motor oil on a building and sawed off four umbrellas in the lunch area before five of them were arrested by two Los Angeles police officers.

The vandals also spread a hardening substance on the locks of 29 rooms, forcing maintenance crews to scramble to clean the locks the morning before the last day of school as students prepared to take their final exams.

The tree planted Wednesday by chef-hat wearing culinary arts students replaced one dedicated years ago to the late John Megna, an English teacher who as a child acted in the classic 1962 film “To Kill a Mockingbird,” playing the friend of Gregory Peck’s screen daughter.

Eleanor Schuster, the culinary arts instructor, said Megna, who died in 1995, was her mentor when she started teaching 14 years ago.

“The first day of class I was horrified. I didn’t know what to do,” Schuster said. “He became my mentor teacher, and my dear, dear friend.”

Mike Wronkowski, president of the San Fernando Valley chapter of the California Assn. of Nurseries and Garden Centers, contacted Schuster shortly after reading about the campus vandalism.

The organization donated seven trees, ornamental shrubs and other plants for the school’s patio area, known as the Viking Galley.

Although senior pranks are a common occurrence that can even be clever and humorous, students said there was nothing funny about last month’s vandalism.

“I’m glad they got caught,” said senior Michael Martinez, 17, who shoveled soil for the new tree. “Senior pranks are meant to be funny, not something you go to jail for.”

Coralya Mazariego, 17, said that the help from people outside the campus sent a good message for students.

“If the community outside cares,” she said, “why shouldn’t we care?”