As the MFS community counted down the remaining days until the arrival of the much-anticipated Winter Break, faculty and students received an unexpected email from Director of Finance and Operations Lisa Carbone-Warren. The email read: “During the holiday season, [Moorestown Friends] especially want[s] to remind everyone to lock their cars on campus. There was an incident on campus this week where items were taken from someone’s car that was parked in our main lot.”
In a follow-up email sent to 11th and 12th graders, Upper School Director Meredith Godley wrote: “Student drivers, … Please note Mrs. Carbone-Warren’s message below. The theft happened in the middle of the school day. Please lock your cars!”
The following week, WordsWorth was able to confirm that another break-in took place on a student’s vehicle that was left unlocked on Paul Drive (the road adjacent to the Hartman Hall path); fortunately, no items were stolen from the vehicle. Although nothing was lost in the latest incident of a vehicle break-in, the first incident continues an alarming trend of theft-related events at Moorestown Friends that began to spring up in January of 2018, when hundreds of dollars were stolen out of cash boxes uses to store the profit from the Economic class’s annual Hot Dog Stand competition. The trend once again resurfaced during Spirit Week, when multiple students reported having money stolen out of their wallets in the locker rooms and other locations on campus.
In a recent interview with WordsWorth regarding the Administration’s decision to lock both the Boys’ and Girls’ Locker rooms at all times except for in between class periods, Dean of Students and Chair of the Physical Education/Health Department Mike Brunswick listed “stealing” as one of the key reasons the decision was made to lock the locker rooms.
Now that these changes have been implemented, the onus is on the MFS community to come together and figure out how to prevent incidents of theft from taking place on campus. When asked how she would like to see the community respond to these incidents, Godley said,
“I’d like to see the [students] take some ownership on figuring out how we address [the issues surrounding theft]. I’m not sure if that’s Agenda or a focus group, but I’d love to hear from [students] about their ideas about changing [this aspect] of school culture.” In addition to that, Godley added that two steps she would like students to take are “being more vigilant” and “calling peers out on things they should not be doing.”
When asked about her message to those responsible for the various thefts on campus, Godley said, “I would hope that those people would take a close look at themselves and their values and realize what they’re doing is not ethical and also realize how damaging [their actions are] to the trust in our community.”
If those responsible for these thefts can reflect on their decisions, and students can be more vigilant moving forward, the community should be able to move past this rough patch and end the 2018-2019 school year on a positive note.
