Violation

Pin It Have you ever felt like somebody stepped into your life and rooted around without your consent?

Have you ever felt like somebody looked into the depths of…well, you?

That’s exactly what I feel like right now; what I’ve felt like all day.

It’s hard to explain, really. This blog post is an attempt to expound on how this felt, and one of the reasons why this weekend was such a difficult ordeal—a marathon in endurance—so to speak. While some of the hardships brought on were of my own doing, many of them were the direct result of the actions of others.

Today was a day off for kids and a work day for teachers. We were to be at work by 8:00 and work until 3:00, giving us ample time to get standard reports ready, and to get prepared for parent-teacher conferences on Wednesday. I was driving to school when I noticed that I had a message from a fellow teacher on my phone. I listened as I drove, and I was shocked by what I heard. Sometime, last night between 9:00 and this morning, my school had been broken into. I was instructed in the message not to come to school until 9:30; that way the police investigation would be complete.

My school was a crime scene.

I promptly turned my car around and began to drive home, wondering whose rooms had been broken into; wondering just what had been taken.

A few minutes later I pulled into my parking space when my phone rang. It was the school. I needed to come in as soon as possible—my room had been broken into.

My heartbeat quickened as I drove to the building, envisioning the worst possible scenarios. Stolen computer monitors, TV, overhead projector, stoplight, and so on. As I drove, I felt sick to my stomach and called my sister—I needed to talk to someone about what was happening. As I drove, the migraine I’d woken up with this morning had returned in a fury and began throbbing in the center of my skull like the heartbeat of a bull moose.

When I pulled up to the school parking lot, I at once noticed the police car.

All was quiet.

As I entered the office, I noticed that the principal’s door had been forced open, and all of his cabinets had been rifled through. The school office as also in a state of ‘unkemptness;’ it was obvious that whoever had been looking for valuables had been in a hurry.

I saw the small huddle of teachers who’d been phoned to come to the school because their rooms had been broken into. I at once felt close to each and every one of them—we were all in the same boat.

The police officers were still doing their policely things, and we were informed—for the time being—to simply wait until they were finished.


It wasn’t long before we were escorted to our classrooms; the feeling of trepidation was rising incrementally as we came nearer and nearer to ground zero. As I walked by a few other classrooms, I noticed that each of them had had the doorknobs broken off—probably with a sledgehammer—realization of what had really happened began to sink into my marrows.

I stood at my door, staring at the dents and broken door handle, wondering what I would find when I went inside.


As I snapped on the light, my eyes shot around the room, doing a quick inventory. I had expected to find all of my flatscreen computer monitors gone, perhaps the TV, and wanton senseless destruction left in the wake of those bent on the larceny and anguish of others.

As I began to analyze my classroom, I noticed that my desk had been rummaged through, as well as several of the cabinets.

It looked like most everything was in place. That’s when I realized that my HD video camera was missing, as well as my new Nikon Coolpix camera. My heart skipped a beat as I suddenly remembered the 5th grade late-nighter activity on Friday night. I remembered a parent staying after to help put things away when the activity had ended, and she had taken my video camera and put it in my car. I didn’t usually take it home, but this weekend I did, I remembered that it was on my kitchen counter.

I breathed out a heavy sigh of relief—that camera had cost nearly $1,700 when I’d bought it. I searched for my Nikon, but it was nowhere to be found. I chalked up the $200 loss as ‘it could have been much worse.’ As I traversed the school and saw the losses of others, I felt very fortunate; some teachers had lost projectors, laptops, digital cameras, and video cameras; basically anything which was lightweight, electronic, and worth money was taken.

Luckily, the projector in my classroom was the oldest in the school…the proverbial ‘brick’ projector. I am pretty sure that it was the same projector Noah brought with him on the Ark. Since it was obviously old and archaic, it was left behind as worthless.

When went into the kiva by the library, I felt my heart drop out of my chest. Whoever had broken in had taken the two carts containing the school laptops and cleared them out. The cart doors had been ripped off and every one of the computers was gone. One of the printers on the cart top had been shoved to the floor, where it had broken into several pieces; it was now ruined.


I felt myself not only sickened, but angry. I was angry that someone would break into an elementary school and steal from kids.

I was at the school for a couple of hours, but it felt different to me now. I felt…violated. I found myself not wanting to be there as I worked on students’ scores for standard reports. In the end, I talked to the principal and got permission to come home to work.

I still feel ill by what happened. I find myself speechless.

As I dug in my computer bag, I was grateful that I’d made it a habit to take my Nikon D60, my laptop, and my iPod home each night. In fact, for some reason or another I’d taken home most of my other small valuables this weekend. As I reached into in an inner pocket of my laptop bag I found my Nikon Coolpix.

Like I said, I was fortunate.

By the way, you can read more about it HERE.