Students at a Vancouver Island elementary school are starting over after vandals broke into a courtyard classroom and meticulously destroyed all of their charity gardening projects.
"To the students, it's something traumatic. This is the safe place that they go to every day," Cpl. Chris Swain of the Sidney North Saanich RCMP told ctvbc.ca
"People are as disgusted as we are about this."
According to police, the vandals climbed onto the roof at North Saanich's Deep Cove Elementary Friday night or early Saturday and lowered themselves into a courtyard used as an outdoor classroom.
The vandals broke two skylights while they were on the roof, and defecated through one into the classroom below.
Once inside the courtyard, the vandals broke a tree in half and trashed student planting projects one by one.
Principal Rob Carere told ctvbc.ca that the vandalism shocked the close-knit community.
"Obviously, we take a lot of pride in our school, as does the community," he said. "It was significant and upsetting that someone would do something like this."
The student plantings destroyed during the spree were part of an annual charity project.
"Children in the school plant a variety of vegetables and other annual flowers, and usually before the end of the year we do a plant sale to raise funds for some charitable cause," Carere said.
The children will now have to replant and begin from scratch, he said.
The courtyard had been upgraded in the past month as part of a community project coordinated by parents, with much of the labour and materials donated.
"It was a major project," Carere said. The school has not yet calculated the repair costs.
No suspects have been identified. Anyone with information can call RCMP at 250-656-3931 or Crime Stoppers at 1-888-222-8477.
