Children vandalize high school

Four "surprisingly young kids" caused thousands of dollars in vandalism at Cloquet High School on July 4, superintendent Michael Cary told school board members Monday.

Cary said camera footage shows the children checking doors at the school until they found one that was not securely latched. Much of the incident was recorded on school security cameras, inside and out.

Police have identified the suspects, who won't be named because they are juveniles. Technology director T.J. Smith told the board Monday that the children were headed into fifth-, sixth- and second grades.

"They essentially made a big mess in the cafeteria, broken bottles, ketchup and other stuff on the floor, rolls of aluminum foil strung around," Cary said.

Cary said school videos show most of the damage was done by the older children; the younger kids mostly just rode their bikes around the school.

"We're estimating between $3,000 and $5,000 damages to technology," Smith said.

The children also broke an industrial-grade large TV monitor outside of the media center, a microphone for the cafeteria audio system, and threw approximately 10 Chromebook laptops down a stairwell - the tech department was still assessing how many of those can be salvaged, CHS principal Steve Battaglia told the Pine Knot.

"Other issues [include] 5-10 hours alone for our custodians to clean and redo a just-finished strip and wax job on our cafeteria floor, plus 5-10 hours of cleaning in our wrestling gym and weight room," Battaglia said.

Once they got inside the building, the students also stole someone's key fob out of an office, which could have given them unfettered future access to the building. After discovering the theft on video, that fob was deactivated.

Battaglia said the vandalism was discovered by a coach who came in the morning of July 5 to work out in the weight room and noticed a mess.

"They called me and we started assessing the damage and called the police," Battaglia said.

It will be up to the county attorney's office whether or not to file charges, the principal said. Meanwhile, the school district is asking all staff to track their hours and hopes to be reimbursed for the damages.

Battaglia said he hopes the children will decide to make better choices in the future.

"Poor decisions made by some really young kids." he said. "Hopefully, they learn a lesson and make good decisions from here on out. This might sound odd, but they could have done a lot more damage than they did, so I'm thankful that we can simply clean up and repair/replace some items and move on. Unless our students and staff read this article, they won't even know anything happened.

"We'll have plenty of time to get everything repaired and ready for students and staff," Battaglia added.

On that note, director of buildings and grounds Brock Wilton said district staff and contracted workers are busy with 40 projects over the summer. The vast majority will be done before school starts. The fate of the proposed middle school outdoor classroom is still uncertain, due to time constraints on federal grant money.

A new year begins

Monday's school board meeting was largely dedicated to organizing for the new school year. The Pine Knot News was again selected as the district's official newspaper. It is the only qualified newspaper, as it is the only paper with an office in Cloquet. The board also approved Squires, Waldspurger & Mace P.A. as well as Fryberger Law Firm for legal services.

Board members voted to remain on the same committees and continue with the same "adopted" schools: that includes Melissa Juntunen at Churchill, Hawk Huard at Garfield, Dave Battaglia at the middle school, Sarah Buhs at Washington and both Nate Sandman and Ken Scarbrough at the high school.

Superintendent Cary said the district received one late resignation from the high school staff: business teacher Cullen Franek won't be coming back.

Cary said anyone who resigns or retires after the deadline (two months before last duty day) faces a 1-percent deduction of gross salary. Franek had taken a leave of absence to train as a barber.

Board members also approved the new girls tennis coaching staff. Emily Hallgren was hired as head coach, assisted by Nick Lind and volunteer coach Samantha Erkkila.

A revised cell phone policy will be discussed at the next board meeting on Aug. 12.