Parents are clamoring for the gates around El Roble Elementary
School to be locked after custodians found condoms, knives and
drugs littering the campus on some mornings.
Parents are clamoring for the gates around El Roble Elementary School to be locked after custodians found condoms, knives and drugs littering the campus on some mornings.
About a dozen parents pleaded with trustees to lock the school’s newly built fence at night and on weekends. The district spent about $166,000 on the metal fence, which now lines the campus’ perimeter. But parents don’t see the point of having it if the school yard still stands wide open.
“You won’t believe the things we find on the playground early in the morning,” said one mother who also patrols the school on yard duty.
On occasion, the younger children pick up trash to earn points for a school’s character-building program. But with drug paraphernalia and prophylactics littering the yard, students can contract diseases or get hurt, the mother said.
Another mother, Julie Miller, held up mangled posters her daughter hung about campus promoting herself for the student council. After one night, they had been torn down, Miller said.
From teenagers getting drunk on the roof of the school to bonfires set behind the portables, El Roble custodian Bryan Large has been maintaining the school for 10 years and has seen it all, he said.
“I could go on and on,” he said.
Parents said they want the gate locked at all times.
More information on this story will be posted Monday.
