Meadowbrook Elementary's dream of an outdoor classroom is being tarnished even while it's being realized.
Funded by a Centennial Schools grant, two years ago the school set aside two acres next to Barton Creek, which runs next to school property. Parents, teachers and students have slaved away since then building a small amphitheater, planting trees, moving a fence and upgrading the creek bank.But teenage hoodlums and gang members have claimed the secluded site as their own. They hang around smoking, they mark the amphitheater with graffiti, they rip out newly planted trees, they terrorize the schoolchildren.
On one occasion the ruffians threw rocks at a class of second-graders that went out to the outdoor classroom. On another a small child was threatened with a knife.
One Meadowbrook class built two small weather stations near the amphitheater to measure temperature, pressure and precipitation. But after repeated vandalism and repairs the class gave up.
"We're all disappointed because we've worked so hard for so long to build the (outdoor) classroom," said teacher Sandra Inman. "This has been a dream of ours for years. It's just very frustrating."
Bountiful city has offered to replace the uprooted trees, but the school hasn't put them in yet.
"We don't dare plant them because they'll just get ripped out," said Shauna Thacker, a parent and chairwoman of the Centennial School committee.
Recently an Eagle Scout candidate cleaned off the amphitheater graffiti, but it soon reappeared. Much of it comprises gang symbols or vulgarities.
"It's very offensive to the teachers," Thacker said. "They don't want the kids reading that."
Tired of being victimized, the school community is starting to fight back. Resident Brenda Mills organized a neighborhood watch program a few months ago, and the city police department agreed to beef up patrols around the area.
Checking on the outdoor classroom is a natural for the two Bountiful police officers who began a bicycle patrol last month. During the school year Jeff Jolley and Wade Owsley are resource officers at Viewmont and Bountiful high schools, so "they know a lot of the gangbangers by name," said police Chief Paul Rapp.
And, being bicycle-based, Jolley and Owsley can get to the outdoor area easily - Rapp said they check on it three to four times a day.
"We're finding (the bicycle patrol) is real effective in that creek area," he said.
But while the problem has lessened, it's still there. Jolley and Owsley have made some arrests at the outdoor classroom for underage tobacco smoking and marijuana smoking, but most of the crimes occur when they're not there. And however many times the police drive them off, the youths can, and do, return.
"It's a perpetual problem," Rapp said.
Thacker was showing a visitor around the outdoor classroom when she was asked how often the hoodlums are there.
"I'm surprised they're not here now," she replied.
But police, parents and administrators alike are hoping their efforts will gradually discourage the wayward youths. They're even talking about lighting and sprinkling systems to drive the youths away, but those probably won't happen because of expense.
Despite all the problems, the elementary students still like the outdoor classroom they worked so hard to build.
"Even through the negative, the kids can see the possibilities," said parent Kristy Muir.