A Valley school is facing a setback and left to wonder who would steal from kids?
Administrators at Crossroads Academy in Tonopah, an alternative school of 24 students, say a thief or thieves broke in last week and stole 20 computers.
"Like, who would try to mess up a student's education?" wondered 7th-grader Michaela Grenhalgh.
Crossroads Academy has mostly high school students. An academic coach oversees their progress as the students, many of whom are low-income, use the computers to connect with online classes.
"It's everything," said Sheryl Driscoll with Crossroads Academy. "It's everything these kids work on all day."
The school canceled classes on Friday and resumed them on Monday, with the students having to work on other projects until replacement laptops arrive.
"I wanted to graduate early, and this is putting me behind in my classes," said student Kaitlynn Hardsock.
The school says the value of the stolen computers is around $10k. The principal is footing the bill for replacements. Since it is a small school with a small budget, Driscoll says they did not have surveillance cameras.
"It's pretty sad that you would target a non-profit, that you would target students because that's basically what they did," said Driscoll.
Administrators hope to install security cameras. They have established a GoFundMe to help raise the money, to prevent this from happening again.
The Maricopa County Sheriff's Office said they currently do not have any suspect information.
