Northwestern Lehigh Launches Probe After Laptops, Projector Stolen: Company in Charge of Security at School to Be Part of Analysis, Superintendent Says; Police Still Investigating.
By Terry McCoy, The Morning Call, Allentown, Pa.
Jun. 1–The Northwestern Lehigh School District has launched an investigation to determine whether the recent theft of 23 laptops and a projector from the district’s high school could have been prevented, officials said Thursday
“I am always worried about criminal activity occurring. Any organization should be worried,” Superintendent Susanne Meixsell said. “Anytime we have a safety issue, we analyze our own protocols.”
She said she doesn’t have reason to think the school’s security firm is at fault, but it will not be exempt from the investigation.
A state grant of more than $400,000 to the district paid for the laptops, Principal Dennis Nemes said.
The theft occurred about 12:45 a.m. Monday at Northwestern Lehigh High School in Heidelberg Township, state police at Bethlehem have said. Nemes said state police still are investigating, so he couldn’t specify how the thieves got into the school.
Nemes and Meixsell said they don’t fear such break-ins turning into a trend at the school and that the surrounding area remains very safe. In Meixsell’s seven years with the school district, she said, the high school has had only one other theft.
Meixsell said she is saddened that taxpayer dollars were wasted.
“So how do you feel?” she said. “It is always a terrible injustice to the learner and those in Pennsylvania [who] contribute tax dollars. It is a high intrusion on the very citizenry of Pennsylvania.”
State Sen. James Rhoades, R-Schuylkill, who helped secure the grant for the district, said the theft will not affect whether the state decides to allocate more grants to the school district.
But Rhoades said he’s furious the break-in happened in the first place.
“I know what I would personally do to them,” said Rhoades, a former principal. “But that would be beyond the law. Then I would be just as bad as they are.”
Nemes said the computers allowed teachers to ask all students a question, rather than just one at a time, enabling the pupils to emerge as “active learners.”
“With laptops, every student is engaged in answering questions,” he said.
terry.mccoy@mcall.com
610-820-6779
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