What’s happening in our schools? Part 3: Vandalism

RENO, Nev. (KOLO) -We spent days with a list of the hundreds of criminal arrests made by school district police in the last year and a half. What most had in common is that taken as a whole, they reflect the world around us.

Kids spend most of their time out there, exposed to the worst of the adult world, much of it now accepted as normal, and bring it with them to school. Little wonder we see the same behaviors reflected here.

But we looked for the unexpected as well and occasionally, we found it.

Vandalism, for instance. We noticed it tended to be more prevalent in the newest schools.

“A lot of it is tagging,” said School Police Chief Jason Trevino, “That type of vandalism. We do see a lot of that in new schools, I think merely because we’re bringing a lot of new kids under the same roof and they are all kind of vying for their spot there.”

We noted the difference in some of the new middle schools, but it really stood out in the figures from Hug High School. Much of its student body spent the first year of our study period on a campus that had been part of the northeast Reno neighborhood for generations. Then many moved into a brand new campus last fall. Arrests for vandalism jumped, more than doubled, examples spilling over to the streets and adjacent neighborhoods. And the school year isn’t over yet.

“It’s not the old Hug,” says Trevino. “There’s not that sense of community, that sense of school pride. because it is brand new. So although the kids were happy to be in there. There was also not that connection to the campus that our kids had previously.”

There were other factors at work and--no surprise--they involve social media, in particular, Tik Tok, which featured a challenge last year encouraging kids to trash their schools.

“It was especially problematic at our middle schools,” said the district’s Chief Strategy Officer, Paul LaMarca.

Again, part of the kids’ world outside was brought to school with predictable results.

The same is true of what was initially the biggest surprise in the records--felony drug charges in large numbers, even in middle school.

it was our turn to ask what’s happing in our schools. An explanation Friday.

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