Library vandalism ends bad year for Ferris High

A bad year for Ferris High School ended even worse when vandals attacked the library during the last week of school.

Someone smashed at least two library computers, smeared ink on the floor and printed an insult directed at Ferris on the wall in the school library.

The damage was discovered Wednesday morning and is being investigated by Spokane Public Schools’ security force. An estimate of the damage was unavailable Thursday, said school officials.

Students said the district was offering a $50 reward for information leading to the vandals. One student said that on Wednesday teachers were checking students’ shoes for ink stains.

Word of the incident, another in a string of unwanted events at Ferris this year, only began to trickle out to media outlets Thursday – a day after the damage was discovered.

“I just found out about an hour ago,” said Terren Roloff, spokeswoman for Spokane Public Schools. “There’s so much that goes on in our schools I often don’t know about things until I hear from the media.”

Because the district has its own security force, which normally handles property crimes in the schools, Spokane police were not called to handle the investigation, Roloff said.

There was no attempt to keep this incident quiet, Roloff said. She had not talked to Ferris principal Erik Ohlund regarding the library vandalism, she said.

There are no suspects, Roloff said. There’s no indication of whether it was a student.

Tom Giaradino, who was one of the students who tried to revamp the school’s image earlier this year by volunteering to clean a house near Ferris that was vandalized by other students, said the latest vandalism surprised students.

“No one actually stole anything. That makes us think it must be a Ferris student,” said Giaradino, who will be a senior next year. “I think that probably a lot of the student body would like to find out who did this before the administration does.”

Students say they’re frustrated.

This year Ferris has been confronted with a series of negative events. There was the resignation of teacher Sayeed X, who has since been arrested on charges of having a sexual relationship with a student on school grounds. Then came the attempted murder of a Ferris teacher by Jacob Carr, a student who had been expelled. Then several Ferris students were arrested for breaking into and vandalizing the empty home that Giaradino and others helped restore.

The latest vandalism is just another crummy thing done by a few but affecting many, said Lauren Viau, who will be a senior next year. She hopes for a better year.

The library was pretty badly damaged, Viau said.

“Computers were broken. There was ink all over the place,” she said.

“It’s such a juvenile act.”