For most of the students at Pioneer Day School the thieves who stole their iPads took more than iPads – they stole their voices.
The majority of kids at the Ocean Beach school are autistic and, for them, the iPads are a way of communicating.
Students and teachers arrived at the school on Santa Monica Avenue Monday morning to find the school broken into. Doors had bee en kicked in, cupboards and locks were tampered with, and worst of all the iPads had been taken.
“Imagine you have duct tape over your mouth and you're not allowed to take your words out in the community with you today,” Sabrina Avants explained.
Avants is a behavioral analyst at the school. She said many of the children at the school struggle to speak and the i{ads make it possible for the students to communicate. She said when she saw the devices had been stolen her initial thought was how would the students communicate.
“This is our main thing,” she said. “This is our mode of communication with our kids.”
Classes continued without the iPads, but for students like Raven it wasn’t easy.
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Like many other students her iPad was customized to her specific needs with apps that can cost a couple hundred dollars by themselves.
“We have kids who in the past have had severe aggression, have injured themselves, have injured others,” Avants explained. “And most of that is because they are trying to communicate something to us and we don't what it is they're trying to communicate.
Jim Leiner founded the school for students with special needs 13 years ago.
“It's heartbreaking,” he said. “This isn't just stealing our technology. This is stealing a child's voice box. This is how our students communicate.
Unfortunately this break-in is only the most recent. Three years ago someone did the same thing – stealing from students these invaluable tools for learning and communication.
“Get a life,” Leiner said of the thieves. “Our students would represent the most vulnerable people in our society, and they’re kids.”
Please bring it back,” Avants implored. “You can leave it in the front door or the step. But we really, really need them.”
News of the break-in has gotten a big response from the community and many people have already reached out to help.
The Caruso Family Foundation in LA just offered to donate $15,000 to cover the cost of the iPads according to Leiner.
