By:Nick Buglione
The head custodian saw three people, one holding a can of spray paint, on the northwest side of the school, at 465 Bellmore Road, that night. He went to take a closer look, and the three walked off, leaving behind fresh graffiti, which included two small swastikas, East Meadow School District Superintendent Dr. Robert Dillon said.
"It was mean-spirited, obviously," Dillon said, adding that a few phrases alluding to marijuana were also written. They included "smoke pot," "smoke weed every day" and "married2marijuana," according to police.
"As per our policy, we removed the most offensive graffiti first," Dillon said. By morning, all the graffiti was gone, he added.
"It does surprise me," said Kathy Volpe, co-president of the Parkway Elementary School PTA, of the graffiti's hateful connotation. "Sometimes I wonder if these kids know what it means."
Anti-Semitic vandalism has been a concern in the East Meadow area, especially after three windows were broken in two separate incidents at the Community Reform Temple in Salisbury last November. In a possibly related incident, a swastika was spray-painted on the road in front of a Roxbury Drive house just blocks from the temple, and the front window of a Valentines Road home was broken around that same time.
About two months later, nearby Temple Sholom was targeted. In three separate incidents from Jan. 2 to Jan. 9, a total of eight windows were broken.
Meanwhile, parents say that teenage loiterers have had the run of Parkway Elementary School's grounds in recent years, causing myriad problems. Since the back of the school's property abuts the Wantagh Parkway, it's difficult to keep loiterers out, parents said. There's only one way in, and police have a hard time spotting teens from the street, making it a secluded and ideal hangout.
"It's gotten to the point where you don't want to do anything that will make the school look nice because it's going to get ruined," said Debra Muller Hillman, co-president of the Parkway Elementary School PTA. Over the years, the PTA has planted eight trees at the school, seven of which were uprooted, she said. Graffiti is also common, and the loiterers often deface school windows by etching into them. They drink and smoke marijuana there, leaving behind beer bottles and other garbage.
Last spring, the loiterers burned the school's playground, and in July, four East Meadow youths were badly beaten there in a fight involving bats, bottles and tire irons. "We've been trying to get the district to give us surveillance cameras," Volpe said.
While Dillon acknowledged the problems at Parkway, he said that all the schools attract loiterers. In addition to a hired security car that patrols all buildings in the district, school officials work closely with police, he said.
He urged residents to get involved by calling 911 if they ever see anything suspicious by or at the schools.
