A three-night crime wave by vandals who attacked an Auckland school has left its students 'upset' and the principal reeling.
Chelsea Primary School on Auckland's North Shore was vandalised on Friday, Saturday and Monday night, damaging property that principal Amanda Douglas said needs fixing urgently.
CCTV from the school shows vandals loitering at the school on Friday night, dragging rubbish bins onto a basketball court and nearby field and proceeding to smash what Douglas said were "a considerable amount" of bottles on the property.
Douglas was alerted to the incident by a parent who saw rubbish "flying around" the field on Saturday.
When it was found the situation was far worse, the family insisted they help, spending four hours cleaning up the mess.
The school's athletics day was scheduled for Monday and with glass on the field, senior students, the school’s caretaker and the family, painstakingly removed shards from the field ahead of the event.
"We have such an amazing school community. One of our school's values is kaitiakitanga (guardians of the environment) - this family really wanted to help the school out and clean it up before Monday," Douglas told 1News.
Vandals struck again on Saturday night – Douglas was checking security cameras just before 9pm and came across "silhouettes of about five or six kids" loitering on the rooftops of buildings.
She rang the school's security company and the fire service were brought in after a fire broke out on the lower basketball court. Douglas said she was there until about 11pm helping clean up after it was found downpipes had been pulled from the school building and smashed over the court.
She said Sunday was a quieter night, however did spot "some really creepy images of a person wearing a balaclava, cruising around".
But last night the worst damage came, with vandals ripping concrete tiles off a roof and smashing them over the basketball court.
"I got a call at 2am when the alarm company rang," Douglas said. "The exit keypad for the school gates was pulled out and destroyed, vandals had thrown the concrete tiles into the pool and tipped more bins over."
"It's really hideous damage. These tiles are hard to replace – it's meant to rain today so we are trying to find someone who can work with those materials."
Families help
Douglas turned up at school as usual at 6am and after realising today's clean-up job was too much for just her and the caretaker, she sent out a message out to parents.
"Within half-an-hour, about five families turned up to help and at school drop-off, 15 more families offered to help."
She said she's had 10 offers from parents to patrol the school overnight but with safety in mind, has opted to have a guard monitor the property, along with its usual patrols.
Douglas has filed a report with police. "We have CCTV but [the vandals] they are so savvy – they are in balaclavas and hoodies wrapped up so tight you can't recognise them."
She said police haven't yet been on site but is hoping "some progress will be made today".
Crime wave relentless
Douglas said the crime wave feels "relentless".
"It's obviously derailing what we need to do in terms of teaching and learning. The swimming season was due to start on Friday and if there is any glass in there, the pool will have to be drained. It has such an impact."
She said the kids are understandably upset and want to help.
"The kids are angry - they are up in arms about it - like what can we do? There is also sadness and disbelief.
"They have shown incredible manaakitanga in supporting each other," she said.
"It's hard and confronting to find the energy to just keep going.
"You turn up and it's a real kick in the guts. It will take days to figure out how to sort this and it just diverts our energy into something that has nothing to do with what is at the heart of the matter - our kids and their learning.
"Education is in a bit of a crisis, we've got so many needs and so much complexity and this is just a tipping point."
Police have been approached for comment.
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