A thief’s hunting season - CCUSD students on lookout for crooks
by Jason Stone

CAVE CREEK – The return to school usually means hunting season begins for would‑be thieves on campuses across the nation.

But the Cave Creek Unified School District hasn’t been seeing the kind of high‑profile thefts that are seen in other places of the country, district officials said.

A recent survey conducted by Allstate Insurance Co., states the top five most common items stolen from students are band instruments, laptops and other data processing devices including PDAs, sports equipment, MP3 players including iPods, and digital cameras.

However, CCUSD’s associate superintendent Kent Frison said the district has had few school‑owned thefts, while Cactus Shadows officials said the school rarely gets theft reports of personal‑property.

“We try to discourage students from bringing (expensive electronics) to school because those things do get stolen,” Frison said.

Rick Swearengin, the assistant principal for discipline and attendance at Cactus Shadows, said CD players and cell phones have been the most common reported stolen items, along with a surprise item.

“Believe it or not, we have a problem with the parking permit placards,” Swearengin said. “They seem to get stolen a lot.”

The last school‑owned theft occurred over the summer, Frison said, when burglars broke through a window at the former site of Black Mountain Elementary School and stole a flat‑screen computer monitor.

“Whenever there is a theft, we have the kids do an incident report,” Swearengin said.

In a news release statement, Allstate Regional Protection Specialist John Sikra encouraged students to not leave expensive items unattended or in their vehicles in plain sight.

“Electronics, musical instruments and sporting equipment are very attractive to potential thieves because they’re so readily available,” Sikra stated in the release. “Students often leave these things out in plain view, and that makes it easy for someone to walk off with an expensive new toy.”

Reach the reporter at jason@thedesertadvocate.com.