HUNT VALLEY, Md. — A preschool in Baltimore County is picking up the pieces after it was vandalized last week. And because of what happened - it's unsafe for the kids to go in right now.
"It's been hard to deliver the news to our families, to our teachers," Becca Roberts, co-owner of Embark Education, told WMAR.
Hours after the school's Friday Halloween fun, on Saturday around 3:30 in the morning, Roberts says a group of intruders broke in through a window.
"They drank our juice boxes," Roberts described, "they ate our cupcakes, they rode around on our tricycles, and then they found a fire extinguisher."
An extinguisher, which they sprayed in parts of the building. At first, it sounds like simple juvenile mischief. But there were unhealthy chemicals spread by the discharged fire extinguisher through the HVAC, causing the preschool to close its doors.
Every room in the building was impacted.
"Sunday, when I came in to assess the damage, I went and sat down in the lobby," Roberts recalled. "My pants were covered in dust, and they did not discharge anywhere close to the lobby."
The school is suffering thousands in damage and lost business income.
Some of this can be cleaned, but everything you see in a bag has to be thrown away.
"Toys, rugs, all the little bears, counting bears, puzzles, magnet tiles, trains. It's all gone," Roberts said.
The Hunt Valley preschool serves more than a hundred little ones, anywhere from 6 weeks to 5 years old.
Many parents have had to stay home and take care of their kids.
Embark is also an inclusive school; about 30 percent of their kids have special needs. Because of the closure, Roberts tells WMAR those kids are losing federally mandated services.
"It's also been really uplifting to see our community come together to rally around our faculty, to rally around for the children."
And on that note, they're collecting toys from the community to help replace what they lost. Dolls, books, blocks, cars, and infant toys. Some of it, though, is irreplaceable.
"We have teachers who bring in books from when they were children that are now ruined," Roberts added. "So there's a lot of personal, sentimental value in what is having to be thrown out."
The HVAC team has to complete its work; once they do, the school can reopen its doors and put behind them this unhappy chapter in their happy place.
Roberts tells WMAR they will stay closed all of next week, too. They're targeting a reopening date of Monday, November 13.
