Twenty Tricks for Combating School Vandalism on Halloween (and During the Rest of the Year, Too)

Halloween’s Scary Stats

Ghoulish costumes may not spook school superintendents, but these scary vandalism statistics just might do the trick. Compared to any other day of the year, Halloween typically has:

• 68% more vandalism insurance claims;
• 8% more theft insurance claims; and
• 5% mysterious-disappearance insurance claims, which are typically claims for stolen, misplaced or lost items.

In addition, Halloween is typically one of the top-three holidays for vehicle theft.

These vandals often target schools. For example, a California high school was extensively damaged by three separate groups on October 31, 2021. In addition to smashing a student’s award-winning 529-pound pumpkin, the criminals egged nearly every building on campus. They also spray-painted racist and homophobic slurs on walls and windows and graffitied a teacher’s home.

Fortunately, there are numerous strategies you can implement to deter vandalism. Which strategies you choose will depend on your budget, your personnel and the pervasiveness of the problem in your district.

“Overall, it is best to think of [vandalism] prevention as a layering process,” advises the Project for Public Spaces. “Each additional preventive strategy increases the security of facilities and resources.”

20 Strategies for Combatting School Vandalism

1. Partner with local law enforcement.

Ask your local law enforcement to patrol your campus more frequently than usual during the last few days of October; most departments will be happy to oblige. Often, a police patrol car driving by is enough to deter potential vandals.

2. Lock gates, doors and other access points during “off” hours.

Vandals like easy targets. Simply locking doors and gates during a school’s “off” hours is an easy way to prevent them from damaging your campus. Make sure that checking the locks on doors and gates is part of your staff’s daily procedures.

3. Install bright security lights outdoors and indoors.

Vandals like to work under the cover of darkness. Bright security lights make it easier for them to be spotted by patrol cars, other passers-by and security cameras. Be sure your security lights are made of vandal-resistant materials and install them in hard-to-reach locations. Then, direct them to illuminate access points, signage, blank walls and other vulnerable areas. In some locations, you may opt to use motion-sensitive lights to save on your electric bill. Please note: Lighting of any kind is only effective when sightlines are clear. If trees, signs or building structures block sight lines, even the brightest lights won’t deter a vandal.

4. Install video surveillance.

Place surveillance cameras throughout your school’s property. At minimum, position them at all points of entry, and at all areas that have been vandalized in the past. Make sure the cameras are out of reach so that vandals can’t tamper with them. If your budget doesn’t allow for surveillance cameras everywhere you’d like, install real, active cameras in your most vulnerable locations and install fake “dummy” cameras elsewhere as deterrents.

5. Install fencing.

Install fencing made of material that cannot be easily climbed over, cut or vandalized. If you choose to install fencing around the entire perimeter of your campus, make sure it includes at least two access points that are wide enough to accommodate emergency vehicles and grounds-crew equipment.

6. Keep popular vandalism targets well-lit and out-of-reach.

When designing your campus, do so in a way that discourages abuse. For example, vandals often target signage and sculptures. As such, take care to place these items in locations that are highly visible and well lit, but difficult to reach.

7. Carefully consider where you place outdoor furniture.

Don’t place outdoor furniture (e.g., benches) where vandals can move them to gain access to light fixtures, surveillance cameras, signs, windows, balconies and the like. Also consider bolting outdoor furniture in place.

8. Strategically place landscaping.

Densely plant shrubbery in places that will make it more challenging for vandals to access your school. For example, install plants with sharp branches, leaves and thorns (e.g., fast-growing blackberry bushes) near signs, blank walls, windows and balconies. In addition, position and prune trees so that they can’t be used as ladders. Also, consider placing a “Beware of poison ivy” sign among your plantings; most people can’t properly ID the plant, so a sign will be enough to deter them from entering a particular area.

9. Install an alarm system.

Install a professional-grade alarm system. That way, if someone enters your school when it’s closed, a siren will notify the alarm’s monitoring company.

10. Install an access-control system.

In particularly vulnerable areas of your school where expensive equipment is stored — e.g., the computer-server room, the bus garage, the utility room, the cafeteria, the band room, the weight room, etc. — install access-control systems, in addition to surveillance cameras. An access-control system only allows authorized personnel to enter. Examples of such systems include, but are not limited to, security-card readers, number pads and biometric finger scanners.

11. Vandal-proof vulnerable surfaces.

Protect temporary signs, bulletin boards and posters by covering them with weatherproofing sheet plastic or sticky tape-like films. Protect permanent structures (e.g., permanent signage, outdoor furniture, restroom walls, etc.) with vandal-resistant “barrier” coatings or “sacrificial” coatings. Barrier coatings are permanent; they can be painted on clean surfaces, and they make future graffiti removal easier. Examples of barrier coatings include enamel paints, non-stick/non-mark paints, fiberglass coatings, porcelain coatings and polyurethane-based coatings. Sacrificial coatings, as their name implies, are removable. If a surface is covered with a sacrificial coating and then graffitied, when the graffiti is cleaned off, the sacrificial coating will come off also. However, the undersurface will remain undamaged. The sacrificial coating will then need to be reapplied. Sacrificial coatings tend to be safer for plants and wildlife than barrier coatings are. Wax-based protective coatings are a common type of sacrificial coating. (Some parks use “graffiti boards” — wood panels that blend into the environment — to cover surfaces vulnerable to vandalism. Once a wood panel is graffitied, it’s removed and a new, clean panel is installed in its place.)

12. Install unbreakable glass and fixtures.

Vandals know that the quicker they cause damage, the quicker they can leave the premises, and the less likely it is that they’ll be apprehended. “Unbreakable” glass and fixtures aren’t 100% damage-proof, but they require significantly more time and effort to break than standard glass and fixtures do. Vandals may try a few times to break them, become discouraged, and then walk away before causing any harm.

13. Obtain student input.

Ask students why they think vandalism is happening at school. Sometimes, simply engaging students in a positive, non-accusatory discussion is enough to solve a vandalism problem; this is especially true if your discussion makes clear that vandalism damages not just the school building, but the students themselves. In addition, a student discussion may provide practical anti-vandalism strategies uniquely suited to your campus.

14.  Encourage students to participate in extracurricular activities.

Often, people vandalize simply because they’re bored. Encourage students to participate in extracurricular activities. If there are no school activities that interest them, then support and promote their involvement in safe community programs — e.g., the local youth center’s intramural sports program, Boys and Girls Clubs of America, Big Brothers/Big Sisters of America, etc.

15. Have students “adopt” areas of the school prone to vandalism.

Intervention Central details a five-step program whereby classrooms “adopt” areas of the school prone to vandalism. The students are charged with that area’s basic upkeep — e.g., throwing away trash, keeping walls and surfaces clean — and can earn prizes for doing so.

16. Have students paint murals on large, blank walls.

Keep America Beautiful’s research has shown that vandals rarely tag brush-painted murals. If your school has large blank walls, consider having students design and paint murals on them. You might allow each graduating class to create its own mural. Or you might change the murals a few times a year to engage more students. Murals can also:

• Be assigned as art-class projects;
• Provide students a safe, positive, after-school activity; and/or
•  Allow students to earn community-service hours for Honor Society, Scouts or Key Club.

17.  Connect with the community.

Ask community members for help. Specifically, ask them to report suspicious activity near the school. And, if need be, ask them to donate money and/or manpower to clean and repair vandalized property.

18. Hire a private security firm.

Hiring security guards from a private firm is costly. Frankly, doing so is out-of-reach for most school budgets. That said, if your campus is under construction and expensive equipment and building materials are sitting outside, you might find that hiring a short-term private security guard is a worthwhile investment.

19. Report acts of vandalism to local law enforcement.

If your school is vandalized, file a report with the local police. At the very least, law enforcement can increase their presence around your school.

20. If you catch a vandal who is one of your students, require them to make amends.

When determining consequences for a student vandal, consider their age and the nature of the damage they caused; the punishment should fit the crime. Education World advises:

“If a student has torn a page from a book, you might have her carefully tape the page back into the book. If she has put gum under a desk, you might have her stay after school and remove the gum from under all the desks in the classroom or cafeteria. If she has written on a desk, you might have her clean all the desks in the classroom. If the damage is such that a parent must pay for it, you might suggest — depending on the student’s age — that the parents find a suitable way for the child to work off at least a portion of the cost.”

Next Steps

• Contact your local police department about instituting additional patrols near your school buildings on Halloween. Because the holiday falls on a weekday this year, you may want to request additional patrols from Friday, October 27-Tuesday, October 31.
• As you prepare your annual district budget, consider allotting funds for some of the vandalism-prevention measures mentioned earlier — e.g., security lighting, video surveillance, fencing, landscaping, alarms, access-control devices, vandal-proof coatings, unbreakable glass, etc.
• Have administrators meet with student groups and solicit their input for how to improve school safety —including, but not limited to, issues related to vandalism.
• Have administrators, maintenance personnel and art teachers at each building in your district identify blank walls that might be good choices for student murals. Ask art teachers to work with student groups to design and paint murals on those walls.
• Cultivate positive relationships with community groups and HOAs near your school buildings. Partner with them to prevent and address vandalism.
• If you’re a PublicSchoolWORKS (PSW) customer that uses the EmployeeSafe Safety Document Library, upload job procedures that specify which staff members are responsible for securing school access points each day. Also upload procedures for how faculty and staff members should report vandalism to school administrators, and for how administrators to report incidents to local law enforcement.
• If you’re a PSW customer that uses the EmployeeSafe Staff Training system, assign your staff these courses: “Building Safe and Supportive School Environments” and “30 Ways to Prevent School Arson.”
• If you’re a PSW customer that uses the StudentWatch Student Behavior Management system, make sure the consequences you’ve assigned for vandalism, theft, arson, etc. are appropriate. Also make sure those consequences require students to make amends for their actions.