MAPLEWOOD / SOUTH ORANGE, NJ — The South Orange-Maplewood School District saw across-the-board increases in the number of disturbances reported during the 2013-14 school year, including a staggering 378-percent increase in the number of vandalism incidents, according to acting Education Commissioner David Hespe’s report, “Violence, vandalism and substance abuse in New Jersey public schools.”
According to the annual report, which compiles the number of incidents all state school districts are lawfully required to document in the Electronic Violence and Vandalism Reporting System, South Orange-Maplewood schools had 67 vandalism incidents during the course of the 2013-14 school year, compared with 14 in 2012-13. That is the second-highest number of vandalism incidents in all school districts in Essex County, after Newark’s 83 incidents.
The Electronic Violence and Vandalism Reporting System guidelines dictate any incident that takes place on school property should be recorded as vandalism if it falls into one of the following nine categories: arson, bomb threat, burglary, damage to property, fake bomb planting, fire alarm-pulling, fireworks offenses, theft and trespassing.
Though the state report does not specify the nature of the incidents, the school district’s 2013-14 incident report states the vandalism in question consisted almost entirely of theft, with 65 incidents recorded. There were also two incidents of property damage, per the district report.
Of the 67 vandalism disturbances, 65 occurred at Columbia High School, according to the district report. With the last two incidents, one occurred at Clinton Elementary School and the other at Seth Boyden Elementary Demonstration School, which are both in Maplewood.
The Superintendent’s Office did not return requests for comment before press time Tuesday, Jan. 13.
No other category in the state report contained as big a jump from the previous year as the vandalism number, though all areas did see relatively sizeable increases.
Most notably, the number of incidents involving weapons went up by 71 percent, from seven in 2012-13 to 12 in 2013-14, according to the state report. The district report specified that 11 of those incidents involved the possession of a weapon other than a firearm or explosive device, while only one involved the use of a weapon other than a firearm or explosive device. Eight incidents occurred at Columbia High School; two occurred at South Orange Middle School, and one each happened at Maplewood Middle and Seth Boyden Elementary Demonstration schools.
South Orange-Maplewood schools also saw a 43-percent rise in violence per the state report, with 105 incidents this past school year compared with 73 during the previous year. Of those disturbances, the district report counted 48 assaults, 33 fights, 19 threats, four sex offenses and one robbery. Every school, except for the South Mountain Elementary Annex and Tuscan Elementary School, had at least one incident of violence, with Seth Boyden having the most at 39.
The substance-abuse category of the state report featured a 30-percent increase, from 13 incidents in 2012-13 to 17 in 2013-14. According to the district report, that number includes 11 confirmed uses of substances, nine cases of possession and two instances of distribution. Per that report, 16 of the 17 incidents happened at Columbia High School, with one occurring at Maplewood Middle School.
The final category in the state report — harassment, intimidation and bullying, which is the only category educators are required to document both on and off school grounds — contained the lowest percentage increase from the prior year.
There was a 14-percent increase in harassment, intimidation and bullying, the state report said, with 40 cases this past school year, compared to 35 in the previous year.
Half of those instances took place at Maplewood Middle School, with the remaining incidents at the the other schools, except for South Orange Middle School and Tuscan Elementary School.
Choosing not to go into specifics about the reports, newly elected Board of Education President Wayne Eastman told the News-Record that the board is currently scrutinizing the numbers and will continue to do what is best for the South Orange-Maplewood School District.
“We are strongly committed as a board and as a community to the spirit and to the letter of harassment, intimidation and bullying policy,” Eastman said.