CALIFORNIA COMPUTERS STOLEN Over 60 Back-To-School Laptops Stolen From School In Van Nuys - cbs2.com:
Aug 23, 2009 3:00 pm US/Pacific
Over 60 Back-To-School Laptops Stolen In Van Nuys
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VAN NUYS, Calif. (CBS) ―
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Click to enlarge - Over 60 laptops were taken from St. Elizabeth's School in Van Nuys Friday.
CBS
The computers were going to given out to the students at the start of school and were meant to be a surprise.
They would have allowed the school's sixth, seventh and eighth graders from this low-income area to start the school year fully equipped for modern learning.
"We had just got them in about a week ago, we were imaging them all. They were ready to be handed out on Monday and somebody came in and took them all… they wiped the whole thing out," St. Elizabeth's School principal, Barbara Barretta, said.
A security camera and taping system captured the apparent well-thought-out theft. Only minutes after the school was locked up Friday night, two men cut open a gate, broke into the office, packed in their van and stole the computers.
As an LAPD technician dusted the office Saturday in search of fingerprints, school people said it was well-known in the neighborhood that the laptops were at the school.
Parents at a school, where two-thirds of the students are at or below the poverty line, spent the summer holding bake sales, rummage sales and movie nights in order to raise the money to buy the computers.
"Everybody was excited, you know, we are going to have laptops. You know, we don't have to depend on other people outside. They're going to have their own laptops and a better education, so, but this happened," Carlos Lezana, a parent, said.
St. Elizabeth's junior high teachers had just finished training to incorporate the laptops into their lesson plan. Now if the computers can't be replaced, they'll have to change their plans… so will their 84 students.
"Why would anyone be so mean, if you will, to be able to do this to the kids?" Lucy Martin, a teacher, said.
St. Elizabeth's Parish planned to check its insurance policy to see if it would cover the loss.
In the meantime, fundraisers that were already scheduled for Sunday, including a pancake breakfast and a carne asada lunch, continued.
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1 comment:
We appreciate your sharing our story with the broader community. It is important to us that our students learn from this to be resilient and to never allow anyone to steal their dreams. We are getting some donations and interest from the community to help us move forward and so we have established the following website for donations. We would deeply appreciate your help in getting the word out.
http://tiny.cc/stelisabeth
Sincerely
Barbara Barreda
Principal
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