Robbers vandalize school in Roxbury

When a janitor at the historic St. Patrick School in Roxbury opened the doors there yesterday morning, he discovered ransacked classrooms, steel table legs strewn over a hallway floor, and the disappearance of valuable computer equipment and other items. The Catholic school had been burglarized for the second time since Monday.

``We're not a rich school, and we've struggled for what we have, so for someone to come in and do what they did, it just breaks your heart," said Alicia Reverack, a first-grade teacher at the school at 131 Mt. Pleasant Ave.

Seven computers, two televisions, a DVD player, a PlayStation game console, and an air conditioner were stolen. The thieves probably entered sometime between Thursday afternoon and yesterday morning through a second-story window that was partially open for an air conditioning unit, police said. Property was stolen from several rooms.

Reverack had purchased a 27-inch flat screen television for the school in November, using her own money. Students watched educational programs and played games on the television when their homework was completed.

``I take it really personal," she said yesterday.

On Monday, two computers, valued at $1,800 total, were stolen, and last week, vandals tossed rocks from the school's backyard playground through nine windows. The plundering has left St. Patrick in disarray and has shaken administrators, teachers, parents, and students as they attempt to focus on the new school year, to start Sept. 6.

The Rev. Walter Waldron, the head of the school and pastor of the nearby St. Patrick Church, walked yesterday through the red-brick, four-story school and stopped inside a second-floor classroom. He gazed at several wooden shelves that teetered from a large desk in front of the room.

``They came, saw, and conquered," he said.

Marguerite Springer, 44, of Dorchester, whose three children, ages 6, 9, and 12, attend the school, said: ``I guess tuition will go up to pay for those things."

``The people who did this, they need to realize that all of the kids who go to school there are the ones who will suffer," she said.

The school is associated with the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston, but this is the first academic year during which it is not receiving any financial support from the archdiocese, leaving the school to raise all its funding from tuition, fund-raisers , and donations, Waldron said. Tuition is $2,400 per student, he said.

Twenty Dell computers were donated to the school in September by Loomis Sayles & Co., a financial institution based in Boston. Some of those computers contained the only records of some students' grades and past work, Reverack said.

Karyssa Budd, 21, was a student at St. Patrick from second to eighth grade, graduating in 1988. During high school, she returned to teach for the afterschool program.

``There wasn't much at the school when I went there, so it's sad to see that the little they do have is disappearing," Budd said.

Police said the burglars may have used a vehicle to gain access to the window. Then they may have used a wooden crate that was left propped against the wall directly underneath the window. The air conditioner that had jutted out of that window was taken. The burglars ransacked at least six classrooms, police said. The school does not have an alarm system.

Waldron said the school, which dates to the late 1800s, teaches kindergarten through eighth grade and has about 200 students. He said insurance may pay for some of the stolen or damaged property.

Standing near the entrance of the rectangular school, just off Dudley Street, Waldron, dressed in black, gripped his beige-colored Panama hat. ``This is an attack against the kids and against an institution in this city that promotes self-worth," he said.