School is meant to be a safe and secure environment for students but this is not quite as true as it used to be, thanks to the very people the school is attempting to protect.

Students say it’s common to have items stolen from them. The locker rooms have become a new place for students to feel like victims.

“I would say the most common places for [theft] to happen is the locker room,” said Susie Hines, a security monitor. “We deal with it maybe twice a week.”

Kaitlin Brunette, a junior, was a victim of theft in September.

“It was the first time I didn’t secure my locker and I had my Blackberry stolen,” Brunette said.

Cell phones and mp3 players seem to be the most common items stolen, according to Brian Dempsey, a P.E. teacher.

“When a student is stolen from, it’s hardly ever because the locker was broken into,” Dempsey said. “Kids leave their stuff out on the benches and don’t secure their lockers.”

Though“who-done-it” is rarely solved, some students have found that they made a mistake in assuming something was stolen from them.

“I left my phone out during class and came back to find it was gone. As it turns out, my friend had put it in her locker when she saw it so that no one really would steal it,” said Crystal Steffler, a sophomore.

Dempsey and Paula Cappelletti, a P.E. Teacher, agree that this can easily be prevented.

“The best way to avoid this, is to make sure to put everything in your locker, and then to secure it,” Dempsey said.

Also, students should report theft immediately. There have been about 25 incidents of theft on campus this year, and less than 50 percent of items stolen are ever recovered, according to Rosa Leptich, conduct secretary, and Brian Jacobs, assistant principal.

“Nine times out of ten, students don’t know who stole from them and, even if they have an idea, we can only search a student with reasonable suspicion, not whenever we want,” Jacobs said.

If a student does not report theft as soon as possible, merchandise may be removed from campus when the student goes home.

If time passes, stolen items can be taken off campus when students go home, making a search useless, according to Leptich.

Should a student be caught stealing, the first punishment would be a five-day suspension and returning the property or compensating for it. On the second offense, one would receive a 10-day suspension and long term suspension is possible on a third offense.

According to Cappelletti, theft is “the biggie,” but students are finding new ways to break rules in the locker rooms.

Other problems include smoking cigarettes.

“You can smell the smoke sometimes when you walk in [after a class period],” Cappelletti said.

The fire alarm that went off on Nov. 5 was caused by mischief in the main boys locker room.

“A couple of boys were found using a fire extinguisher which caused the alarm to go off,” said Melissa Copeland, security monitor.

Though Copeland isn’t sure for how long, she said the students were caught on camera and suspended.

“We managed to find them within a couple of hours,” Copeland said.