In a rather inconvenient start to the new year, the Seminole Public School district has been forced to deal with a burglary at their Wilson Elementary School building, believed to have occurred sometime around New Years Eve.

According to a police report filed by the school, an administrator was notified of a possible breach by the alarm company on Thursday, December 31. After walking the building, looking for anything out of the ordinary, the police report stated the administrator, “did not observe anything suspicious or open,” so they reset the alarm and left. Shortly after leaving, the school administrator received another call from the alarm company, but told the company to disregard the alert, as they were still in town and could check it out themselves. After repeating the same steps as they had before, the administrator once again found nothing amiss and decided to return home.

However, a few days later, on January 3, a custodian for the school called the administrator to report that he had found a window cracked open in one of the rooms. Upon further inspection, it was discovered that a classroom had been ransacked and a number of items had been taken. A total of 12 iPads were included in the theft, however, the school was able to disable them remotely, making them unusable for whoever took them. As of right now, the police have no suspects in the burglary.

While the incident was not necessarily a huge loss, Superintendent Bob Gragg affirmed, “it’s still a hassle.” Besides the burglary at Wilson, the school has also had to deal with another theft which was discovered on Monday and involved one of the district’s vehicles. According to Dr. Gragg, someone had tampered with the ignition of the vehicle and made an unsuccessful attempt to hot wire it. However, although the car was not stolen it was left damaged and in need of repairs which will have to come out of the school’s pocket, as they do not cost enough to meet their insurance deductible.

Despite the less than ideal circumstances, Dr. Gragg maintained he views the situation as an example of the hard times many people are facing due to the pandemic. “You hope they did it to feed their family,” stated Dr. Gragg. “We want to help people in need and not force them into a situation where they have to do something like this.”

Because this is an ongoing case, the story is subject to updates as new developments occur.