OAK HARBOR -The Oak Harbor School District is stepping up security after vandals struck four schools in the past two weeks.
“We’ve agreed to increase the frequency of police drive-bys, and our security guys have basically doubled the security rounds for the schools that have been hit,” said Bruce Worley, the district’s executive director.
“We want to stop this from happening,” he said.
The Whidbey Island schools this week also have asked students and neighbors for help in stopping the vandalism, he said.
“Several leads from students have been given to the police department already,” Worley said.
Six separate incidents occurred at four schools, he said. The damage included broken windows, a burned tree and graffiti scrawled outside some schools, police said. The cost of repairing the damage is estimated at $5,000, Worley said.
A swastika was found spray-painted at one middle school the week before Christmas, but investigators do not believe the vandalism was racially motivated.
“There was only one swastika. There’s no other hate language or graffiti there,” Oak Harbor police Capt. Rick Wallace said. “We think it was a crime of opportunity while the schools were closed during Christmas vacation.”
Police do not know if the vandalism at Oak Harbor Middle School, North Whidbey Middle School and two elementary schools is linked, he said.
Broad View Elementary School, which serves nearly 400 students, was the hardest hit. Vandals visited the school twice. A tree on the playground was set on fire early Dec. 29, but the flames did not damage the school, district spokesman Joe Hunt said.
Firefighters put out the blaze, and school officials discovered graffiti the next day, including the misspelled “reveng destruction” spray-painted in red on the school’s playground, Hunt said.
Vandals came back Dec. 30 to break seven windows, Hunt said.
On New Year’s Eve, one window was broken at Hillcrest Elementary School. Vandals climbed through the window and burned paper in an apparent attempt to set the school’s sprinkler system off, Hunt said.
“It could have been so much worse had they succeeded in getting the sprinklers to go off,” Hunt said.
School officials worry most about the fires, Worley said.
“We’re very concerned,” he said.
District maintenance crews covered most of the graffiti and boarded up the broken windows before students returned to classes on Monday.
Anyone with information about the vandalism is asked to call Oak Harbor police at 360-679-5551.
Reporter Katherine Schiffner: 425-339-3436 or schiffner@ heraldnet.com.
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