Inclusive Riverview, N.B. playground vandalized with swastikas – New Brunswick | 24CA News
Content warning: This story incorporates a picture of an offensive image. Discretion is suggested.
Lara Lavoie was shocked to see swastikas painted on the playground of Frank L. Bowser elementary faculty when she dropped off her kids on Monday morning.
“We were pretty upset,” she stated.
“My child is 11 so he understands what the swastika is and what it represents so it was especially upsetting for him,” she stated.
Anglophone East School District superintendent Randy MacLean stated he was “shocked, dismayed and disappointed” to see the antisemitic symbols on the playground on Monday morning.
Staff coated the vandalized components of the playground with tarp earlier than the graffiti was eliminated early within the day on Monday.
Parents, workers and college students of Frank L. Bowser elementary faculty in Riverview have been upset after they noticed the swastika graffiti on Monday morning.
Courtesy Lara Lavoie
MacLean stated the culprits have been caught on safety digicam footage at 11 p.m. on Sunday night time.
The district has shared the footage with the Codiac RCMP.
The playground was renovated in 2019 to change into an accessible and inclusive playground in honour of Rebecca Schofield, a Riverview teen who impressed acts of kindness via her #BeccaToldmeTo social media marketing campaign.
Schofield handed away from mind most cancers in 2018.
Her mom Anne Schofield advised Global News in an announcement that her household is “extremely saddened and disgusted that a park build by and for the community in honour of Becca and her mission to spread kindness has been vandalized with hate symbols,” and stated the Schofield household condemns “antisemitism, hate and discrimination in all it’s forms.”
MacLean stated the park, like different parks within the Anglophone East School District, has been vandalized prior to now.
“In each one of our schools we deal with vandalism,” he stated in an interview.
He stated the district was working with the varsity, municipalities in addition to the RCMP to discover “opportunities” to make sure the security of the park.
Lavoie, who can also be a member of the mum or dad faculty assist committee is looking for elevated safety on the park.
“We have the funding which we already fundraised for, we’re waiting for approval (from the school district) to spend it,” she stated.
MacLean stated academic assist workers was on website on Monday morning to show kids in regards to the that means of the graffiti.
“We made sure everything was removed as much as it could be or replaced or whatever it needed, but the education component is the heavy lifting,” he stated.
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