Such a Shame

Well I guess things can't be sunshine and daisies all the time, and Tuesday morning was a rude reminder of that. At some point during the night on Monday, Ecole Champagne, the elementary school where I do most of my teaching, was broken into and vandalized. The police believe there were four teenagers involved, although only two of them have been apprehended (they were caught trying to break into a nearby library later that night). They broke a window to get into the school cafeteria and proceeded to break all of the plates and bowls, then emptied the refrigerators and threw them on the ground. They ransacked three of the nearby classrooms (upended chairs and tables, in general just made a mess) and stole three computers from one of them. But they really went to town in the teachers' lounge, spraying ink all over the floor and walls and pulling down the teachers' mailboxes with their papers inside (see picture from local newspaper on the right). I didn't have to go into school until 1:30pm on Tuesday, because my morning class was canceled, and when I arrived there was a cleaning crew stll trying to remove the ink from the teachers' lounge. It took pretty much the whole day, but classes were able to function normally and even the lunch service in the cafeteria took place as usual.

 

Apparently this has happened before, the most recent time being two years ago when someone burned down the École Maternelle Champagne (the nursery school next door) and tried to burn down the elementary school as well. The nursery school was totally destroyed and had to be rebuilt, but the elementary school suffered only minor damage.

There was another sober moment in the day as well: at 11am all of the schools in the country had a moment of silence in honor of the 3 Jewish children and their teacher who were gunned down in Toulouse on Monday. So in all it's been sort of a serious week. But the minor dammage inflicted upon École Champagne was nothing compared to the atrocity which took place in Toulouse, and two days later all that remains of the hoodlum activity are some ink stains on the floor and an empty space where the 3 computers once sat.

UPDATE: The three computers were recovered and are currently being cleaned. They should be back in the classroom soon!