Students and staff pulled into Bonita Vista High’s (BVH) main parking lot on Nov. 7 to start the new week of school, only to be met with vandalism of the new football stadium. The stadium was of great importance to BVH, as it was something the community had awaited for a long time.

The vandalism was noticed by many and the construction workers reported the incident to BVH administrators Monday morning. BVH Principal Lee Romero explained that the front of the stadium was vandalized with tagging.

“The front [of the football stadium] is part of the initial chunk of money that [was] designated for Bonita Vista High School, and it’s the infrastructure for [the] stadium,” Romero said. 

BVH has experienced a history with vandalism, not only in the front of the school but throughout the inside of the campus as well. The campus’s bathrooms are consistently vandalized and there have been multiple instances of school property being broken, stolen or vandalized. Administrators have pushed students to do the right thing by reporting suspicious activities in order to prevent vandalism from occurring. Romero urges students to realize that vandalizing campus affects no one but the students themselves.

“I don’t have a lot of respect for people who do that. This [the stadium] is being built for students and for them to [vandalize it], I don’t understand why anybody would do something like that,” Romero said.

BVH’s School Resource Officers (SRO) come into play when the BVH administrators report vandalism. The SRO are police officers assigned to a middle or high school in order for the police departments, schools and community members to have a clearer bridge between one another. SRO Marcela Ruvalcaba explained how reports and investigations work in connection to the school.

“Administrators call us directly [and] we come out here and evaluate and document, because some stuff can just be painted over. Other stuff is very costly, to be able to repair and that’s what we’re here for,” Ruvalcaba said.

Despite the report, the police department did not have a solid idea of who the suspect might have been. Both Romero and Ruvalaba urge students, parents or teachers to contact the BVH administrators if they have any information on the incident. 

“It’s not the same type of tagging that we’ve seen in different instances at the school, so we don’t think it’s related. [And] as far as identifying the suspect, I’m not sure if the suspect has been ID’d [identified],” Ruvalcaba said.

Although the vandalism was not offensive or insulting, it caused a large amount of damage to a part of the building it was on. In most cases, the tagged area on school property would  be painted over or sanded off, however, for this situation, the tagged wall will have to be completely replaced.

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