They come in the night or early morning, forcing open windows, sneaking into classrooms and escaping with valuable laptops and projectors at Gilroy Unified School District’s Brownell Middle School.
“All we really see – even though there are cameras – is shadows. They haven’t been able to catch anyone,” said Brownell math teacher Meg Thomson of the poor-quality images caught by school cameras.
Police responded to six burglary calls at the campus within the last three months, according to Gilroy Police Department Sergeant Pedro Espinoza. For the last week-and-a-half, an unarmed security officer from a private security company has patrolled the site during the night – a security measure that will continue indefinitely until the culprits are found.
The break-ins, meanwhile, have alarmed teachers who are voicing their concern to the school board. Seventh-grade teacher Danielle Sassano asked school board trustees to address the issue during a March 20 school board meeting.
“What really caught me by surprise is that this was the seventh burglary this year,” Sassano said during public comment.
Despite the nighttime break-ins, however, Brownell remains safe during the day, according to GUSD Assistant Superintendent of Business Services Alvaro Meza. He said a high fence surrounds the perimeter of the school and means the only entrance to the campus is in front of the main office where teachers, administrators and supervisors are on site during the school day.
As soon as Sassano addressed the board about security concerns, district administrators arranged to heighten security measures while the meeting was still in session. Uretsky Security – the same company that provides security officers to patrol the district’s parking lot during school board meetings – immediately sent an officer straight to the site.
Heightened security
Brownell has had intermittent security at the site during the last break in mid-February. At that time, Brownell was named a “hotspot” with patrol officers asked to spend extra time patrolling the school site. The now nightly watch of the school site comes at a cost of $21 an hour.
The night of the school board meeting, someone tampered with the door of a restroom portable, then stopped.
“We think that the watchman came around and either was seen or they figured out someone was at the school and fled the scene,” Meza said.
Police don’t have record of an attempted burglary at the campus that night, although they were aware a security officer was present at the site that evening, according to Espinoza. GPD has a property crimes detective working on the case.
The district first learned about the burglaries in early December during a quarterly safety meeting when a Brownell administrator brought it to their attention, Meza said.
