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Flood-damaged school burglarized
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BATON ROUGE - Police are looking for thieves who stole from a school recovering from the August flood.
Glen Oaks Park Elementary students have been attending the old Banks School since the flood. Last week, someone broke into the school and stole dozens of tablets and laptops.
"Whoever's done that were not thinking about children," Principal Bernard Williams said, "because the flood had did enough damage to these children."
Bernard said he feels like this was just the latest setback in what has been a tough year.
"We lost everything," Bernard explained. "We lost over $1 million worth of materials and supplies. And we had so many generous donors to give us stuff to replace it, and we were starting to feel like we were coming back, and then you get slapped in the face, all the stuff that people donated."
Some of those donors were teachers who used their own money to buy the technology.
Burglars stole 29 Chromebooks, 53 Kindles with headphones, and a projector screen, according to Bernard. He valued the items stolen at $5,000. Bernard said all campus doors were locks and there was no structural damage.
"The contents of the room were missing, so it kind of gives us an opportunity to kind of reflect, and the only room that was damaged were the rooms where the technology was stored, and the other rooms were untouched."
Bernard said the burglars used large trash bags from the janitor's closet to store the technology. School surveilance cameras were not working at the time.
"We're reaching out to anybody that's going to be kind-hearted, generous, to just keep the cause going. They took Chromebooks, but they didn't take children, they didn't take teachers, so we still have a cause and a mission to educate children to the max."
Bernard said the school is on schedule to return to the remodeled school this Fall.
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