Murphy Warns Students That Trespassers Will Be Suspended

On Sunday, Patch ran a letter from Island Trees Superintendent Charles Murphy warning students not to trespass on school property.

Patch reached out to Superintendent Murphy this week to take a more in-depth look at these issues.

According to Murphy, the district frequently deals with students trespassing on school property. Many times, they are under some sort of influence.

"We have, at times, drinking and drug use on our school property, where you can see drug paraphanelia or beer bottles littered on the ground. You’re also seeing graffiti on the playground after these nights or someone breaking into one of our conex trailers where track and field equipment is stored," he said.

Murphy said that the trespassers are generally identified as students from the Island Trees school district. If they are students on school property, they are disciplined.

"Those aren’t kids from neighboring school districts coming over here. They're the neighborhood kids who are up to no good at times," he said. "They get caught at night on our property. We generally will turn them in to the police or we’ll get them on trespassing and they’ll be disciplined in schools with suspensions."

Murphy mentioned several examples where students were suspended for trespassing on school property. In one incident, students were caught on security cameras committing acts of vandalism at Stokes Elementary School. That incident, and others, led to suspensions of students.

"We [caught] some kids on our ball fields with beer last year," he said. "Those kids were suspended. We caught kids on our roof playing some scavenger games. Alcohol was involved. Those kids were suspended."

School security patrols the school grounds at night on weekends. "They will patrol and they catch kids with names on the property. [The kids] get suspended on Monday morning," Murphy said.

The timing of the letter was to prepare the community for the spring and summer months, where nicer weather will cause more problems.

"In the winter, the kids, when they go out at night, it’s so cold that they don’t tend to stay out very long. When it’s spring and summer, it’s nice. The kids end up staying out, walking on grounds, walking in the neighborhood and getting themselves into trouble," Murphy said.

The main goal of the letter and the campaign to stop trespassing is to keep the property safe and the community safe.

"We just want to make sure that the kids are safe and not doing crazy things and damaging the property," Murphy said. "It’s just a reminder to keep the kids off our grounds at night. If they’re there after dark, they’re usually up to things other than productive things. We just give a warning, but if you get caught, you get caught."