By Karen Poh
ALTONA West Kindergarten has been the target of vandals who have stolen and damaged the school’s shade sails four times since late 2006.
In the latest incident last month, it appears vandals climbed over the kindergarten fence and jumped onto the sails, causing them to stretch.
The sails, which cost around $2000 each to replace, have been a drain on the kindergarten’s resources.
Ellie Corbo, who is the president of the parents committee of management, said the money could have been better spent on improving services for the children.
“Kinders run on fairly tight budgets and you can lose flexibility when you start spending your money on replacing the same item over and over,” she said.
Children miss out on the “little extras” like excursions, new programs, and replacing old play equipment.
“One of the programs we were going to do with the children was getting the children to plant and tend vegetables,” Ms Corbo said.
“We built some vegetable boxes last year, and that’s going very slowly because we don’t have the spare money now to get the vegetables to plant in them.”
The kindergarten has since taken down its shade sails.
“At this stage we’ve taken it down, because it’s coming into winter and we’re not going to put up another one until we can come up with some better solution of keeping them safe,” Ms Corbo said.
The height of the kindergarten’s fence has also been increased and new security measures have been implemented.
Hobsons Bay City Council is calling on local residents to help tackle the problem.
“We’re calling on anyone who sees the wrong thing being done to contact the police immediately,” the mayor Bill Baarini said.
“This behaviour is illegal, and penalties do apply,” he said.
