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Computer teacher Elizabeth Johnson shows Crime Scene Technician Michele Slivia form the Oakland...
OAKLAND -- A weekend burglary at East Oakland PRIDE Elementary School turned dozens of classrooms upside down and cost the schoolchildren a day of class.
School was dismissed Monday morning after school staff members discovered that 30 classrooms had been ransacked, Oakland school district spokesman Troy Flint said. Among the items stolen were a safe from the principal's office, document cameras and Mac computers from the school's newly refurbished computer lab.
Jacqueline Calderon, a second-grade teacher, said she was on her way to work Monday when one of her colleagues called to tell her about the break-in. She said she first saw the wood chips covering the floor of the principal's office, from his door being
smashed in. Then, along the upstairs hallway, she noticed all of the glass -- "protruding shards of broken glass."
Flint said school police officers are investigating the break-in. He said he did not think the alarm was triggered.
Burglaries and vandalism occur with alarming regularity in the district's schools. One school, Sobrante Park Elementary, sustained a series of arsons during the 2008-09 school year. Adam Taylor, principal at Brookfield Elementary School, estimated last year that his school had been broken into at least 25 times in 18 months.
East Oakland PRIDE was burglarized at least once this school year, during the Thanksgiving holiday, and once last summer.