Break in is latest setback for Excelsior

In the best of times the running of Excelsior High School in eblize City is a touch and go position. But these are not good times for the institution…as News 5?s Jacqueline Woods discovered this morning.

Gayle Thompson, Principal, Excelsior High School
?It is very frustrating. We are a poor school operating in a poor neighbourhood and we think that the service we are providing is a crucial one because even though enrolment is small, it is a place where the small number of students can come to receive their education. So it is very frustrated for us to have to be…you know if you make one step forward you have to make three backwards again and it throws us back a whole lot.?

Jacqueline Woods, Reporting
Sometime between Wednesday night and early Thursday morning one of the new buildings at Excelsior High School was ransacked and burglarized. The mess was extensive with the thieves having enough time to go through the offices of the principal, secretary and a counselling room. It?s surprising that no one in the neighbourhood became alarmed because the burglars everything possible to get into the building.

Gayle Thompson
?We just recently bought a P.A. System that we use at assemblies and the amplifier and the mic from that was stolen. We had some money there in coins that we use to pay our vendors at the end of the week. All of that was stolen for a total of about a hundred and seventy-five dollars.?

As burglaries go this one is not huge but the high school, which operates on a budget of only thirty thousand dollars a month, struggles to meet its operational costs. In fact he P.A. System that was stolen was bought from money raised from last year?s school pageant. According to Principal Gayle Thompson, the school?s morale is low.

Gayle Thompson
?We will have to go and replace the doors, the draws that were broken in and as well as some documents that we cannot put our hands on we will have to try and replace those.?

Thompson says they have been receiving reports giving them an idea who committed the crime. Thompson says she does not know if any of her students are involved but the police are investigating.

Gayle Thompson
?I cannot say for certain but we do not rule out that possibility as well and the police the information that we know and they are going to use the information to find the culprits.?

The burglary occurred at a time when the young men and women are preparing for their annual pageant.

Gayle Thompson
?Well the pageant is one of our biggest fundraisers for the year. Tonight?s pageant takes place at Holy Redeemer Parish Hall. It will start at seven o?clock and we will like to ask the public to support us by coming out and there will also be a dance following at the Bird?s Isle. It is going to be a clean dance without alcohol. There will be a lot of police there; it will be safe and a lot of protection. So I want to encourage the public to come out and support our dance and if anybody wants to help us recover the things we lost in this theft, we will certainly appreciate it.?

It is the third time that Excelsior High School has been burglarized. Jacqueline Woods For News 5.

Tickets for Excelsior?s pageant can be bought at the door of the Holy redeemer Parish hall for only five dollars. If you are planning on attending the dance at Bird?s Isle you can by tickets at the door for five dollars as well.