Mississippi Valley School
HANNIBAL -- It's been a tough week at the Mississippi Valley school in Hannibal.
The school for severely disabled students was broken into earlier this week.
The thieves took two computers, DVD and CD players, and music from a couple of classrooms.
But more than the material items, what was taken from these students can't be replaced.
It looks like everything's back to normal at the school, but that's on the surface. Sometime in the overnight hours of January 13th and 14th, somebody broke into the school, and stole things from room six and seven.
"There were a lot of tears that day. They are very much into routine, and they don't like their routine messed with. They couldn't understand why it was gone. That just did not make sense to them," says principal Connie Billings.
School principal Connie Billings tells me the hardest part was explaining to the kids what had happened. She said when students arrived on the 14th, police were there, so they knew something was up. They just couldn't understand where their stuff was and why it wasn't coming back.
"One student told me whenever I saw that student that day was the bad guys came and took my music," says Billings.
The two classrooms are rooms where the teenagers go, so you can imagine how much they love their music. Plus, the computer had programs that helped with reading and numbers.
"They almost got three computers, but one computer is in a classroom where our youngest children are and they kept moving the computer around, so the teacher duct taped it down," says Billings.
Things are getting back to normal for the students. Someone donated this CD player which is also a karaoke machine...I big hit for the students. Billings also tells me two new computers should be on their way to the school soon.
"It's disbelief that anybody would want to steal things from a school and take stuff away from students and children," says Billings.
As for the crime, Hannibal police are investigating, but so far no arrests have been made.
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