JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 A private STEM school in Jacksonville that offers free tuition for students is facing a major setback.<\/p>\n
The principal of the Minds of the Future Academy said a break-in over the weekend left its new building stripped of essential technology.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt wasn\u2019t a violation just to one person; it was a violation to a community of people,\u201d Principal Dr. Cynthia Smith said.<\/p>\n
Dr. Smith said nearly everything inside was gone, from items like laptops and tablets to monitors and smart TVs.<\/p>\n
\u201cI noticed immediately that all of our smart TVs were gone,\u201d Dr. Smith said.<\/p>\n
School leaders are still inventorying the damage, but they believe that more than $200,000 worth of equipment was taken.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s disheartening,\u201d teacher Tiaira Howard said. \u201cI can\u2019t believe that somebody would do something like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
The school has been operating out of the Boys and Girls Club on West 25th Street. <\/p>\n
>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <\/b><\/a><\/p>\n They were preparing to move into this new building on Carmichael Avenue, where the break-in happened.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve been looking forward to this happening for two years,\u201d Dr. Smith said.<\/p>\n The principal said staff started moving items inside at the start of the month, even though the full move wasn\u2019t scheduled until January.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a major setback,\u201d Dr. Smith said.<\/p>\n Despite the setback, school leaders said they are determined to recover and continue serving their students.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are going to have to readjust,\u201d Dr. Smith said.<\/p>\n \u201cI just hope that whoever did this that you just have a heart and give it back,\u201d Parent Sherika said. \u201cYou\u2019re hurting the children at the end of the day.\u201d<\/p>\n A report has been filed with the Jacksonville Sheriff\u2019s Office, which Action News Jax is working to get. <\/p>\n At the time of the break-in, security cameras had not yet been installed. Dr. Smith said they were scheduled to be put in this week.<\/p>\n She is encouraging anyone who knows any information about this to come forward.<\/p>\n If you would like to help the school during this time, you can click this link to make a donation.<\/p>\n Protect the Future Fund – minds of the future foundation<\/a><\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: <\/b>Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/b><\/a>]<\/b><\/p>\n [SIGN UP: <\/b>Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/b><\/a>] <\/b><\/p>\n Click here<\/b><\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, <\/b>click here<\/b><\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and <\/b>click here<\/b><\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/b><\/p>\n Action News Jax Top Stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 A private STEM school in Jacksonville that offers free tuition for students is facing a…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":468722,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5136],"tags":[12189,13826,5229,213083,213084,213082,9223,3188,723,7310,13035,425,213081,26365,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,49103],"class_list":{"0":"post-468721","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-action_news","9":"tag-alexis_clevinger","10":"tag-america","11":"tag-boys_and_girls_club","12":"tag-carmichael_avenue","13":"tag-cynthia_smith","14":"tag-doctor","15":"tag-fl","16":"tag-florida","17":"tag-jacksonville","18":"tag-jacksonville_sheriffs_office","19":"tag-local","20":"tag-minds_of_the_future_academy","21":"tag-stem","22":"tag-united-states","23":"tag-united-states-of-america","24":"tag-unitedstates","25":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","26":"tag-us","27":"tag-usa","28":"tag-west_25th_street"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115774178193043497","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=468721"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468721\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/468722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=468721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=468721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=468721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}