We took photos of the vandalism, and the custodians removed the graffiti and cleaned up the locker room before any students witnessed it.  I informed the faculty, the deputy superintendent and the police about the incident. Team teachers were asked to read a brief message to students that described what happened and to talk with students about the situation.  Please find the text of the message to students below:

 

"A Message from the Principal:
This morning we discovered some disturbing vandalism and graffti in the girls' locker room that we believe occurred over the weekend. Blue acrylic paint from our art room was sprayed on the walls, floors and ceiling and a hateful message was written on a stall in the lavatory. Clearly, this is unacceptable behavior that violates our core value of respect for ourselves and our school. Our custodial staff has cleaned up the mess, and we have reported the situation to the police. But we need to come together as a community to let people know that this is not the kind of behavior that we expect or will tolerate here at Day Middle School. We need your help with this. If you have any information about how this might have happened, please let an adult in the school know about it.
In the meantime, I want to thank the great majority of you who always behave respectfully toward people in our school and school property. Thank you very much."

 

The assistant principals and I are working with the faculty to discover the author of the graffiti.  If you have any questions or have information to share about the incident.please feel free to contact me.