Educators suspect former learners are responsible for the latest in a spate of burglaries and acts of vandalism at their school.
Staff at Protea Primary School, in Bonteheuwel, say they arrived at school on Monday morning to find smashed windows in the kitchen in the administrative block, a fire extinguisher stolen and water pipes broken.
School administrator Lindsay Cupido says she was shocked: “We came in and this is what we have to deal with. We are here to teach our children, but the staff and our children are afraid to come to school.”
She says she questioned a neighbour who told her who was behind the break-in.
“We discovered that some of our ex-pupils had thrown in the kitchen window and broke the fire extinguisher hose. Die bliksems was laas jaar op die skool, jirre,” says Lindsay.
“The brother of one of the boys also confirmed it. It makes me sick, we raised these kids and they are just going out of their way to break the school down.”
When teachers returned to start the new school year on 15 January, they found offices, as well as toilets, flooded with water.
Taps, cables and water pipes running through the ceiling had been ripped out.
The skelms also targeted the library, but were apparently interrupted before they could carry off boxes of books, which had been stacked up in the room.
Two weeks ago, skelms tried their luck again, but police were notified immediately.
Lindsay pleads: “These people need to stop what they are doing. They are ruining our children’s future, by taking the tools needed to build the future.”
The school reported the incident to the Bishop Lavis Police Station.