Nov. 13, 2001 — Classes at Juanita Gardine Elementary School had to be canceled Tuesday after vandals trashed classrooms over the holiday weekend.
Gardine Principal Carmine Mills said that the school was vandalized twice over the three-day weekend. Sometime Saturday, someone broke into the school kitchen. She was notified by police of the break-in at about 7 p.m.
"They cooked and really made a mess and left," she said.
What forced classes to be called off on Tuesday, however, was damage done on Sunday or early Monday. Mills said that when she returned to the school with students after Monday's Veterans Day events, she discovered that vandals had again struck. This time almost every room had been "completely trashed," she said, with bulletin boards and chalkboards pulled off the walls, desks overturned and paint poured over the wreckage.
"The school is in deplorable condition," she said. "As a result of that, we are unable to have school … I'm hoping we can be back in session Wednesday."
Told of the vandalism at Monday's Veterans Day events, Gov. Charles W. Turnbull, a former educator, said he was appalled and called on the community to turn in the culprits.
"This is a self-destructing situation," Turnbull said. "We have a community destroying itself."
