WASHINGTON SEATTLE AREA SCHOOL COMPUTERS STOLEN KING5.com | News for Seattle, Washington | KING5 Top Stories: "School computers stolen

06:23 PM PDT on Monday, August 22, 2005

By ERICH R. EBEL / KING5.com

SEATTLE - Faculty at Nathan Hale High School in north Seattle, Wash., arrived on campus Friday morning to find three computers from their computer lab on the front lawn, and 16 of 24 more missing inside. With only weeks before school is scheduled to begin again, staff at the school northeast of Green Lake are at a loss about what to do. The computer lab's supervisor told KING 5 News that all the computers stolen were Apple Macintosh, and between five and eight years old.

None of the computer's monitors were taken, just the towers themselves.

The school is working with the district to come up with replacement options, but ordering new computers could take between two and three weeks. School is set to begin September 7th, and the theft of these computers will affect both the school yearbook and school newspaper operations. That equates to about 200 kids who will now have to use PC's to complete their work.
Those students also used the computers to create and publish business calendars and other projects for the community.
'It's just devastating when you're getting ready for the first day of school, and something like this happens,' said the supervisor. School officials are now working with the district to come up with new, tighter security for the computer lab, such as video cameras or alarms.'
Investigators say the thieves had probably broken in through a window overnight, bypassing the school's security alarms. The lab supervisor believes it may have been an inside job, which she feels is adding insult to injury.

"Nathan Hale prides itself on the tight community, and having members of that close knit community do something like this is devastating."

The total loss for the school is estimated around $10,000.

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