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 <<<<\/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: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/a>]<\/p>\n [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/a>] <\/p>\n Click here<\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, click here<\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and click here<\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/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":2,"featured_media":93172,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[689,6982,49784,694,697,4169,6036,7898,16007,3068,7071,6157,5566,166,49785,15859,28966,113,49786,20060,29166,1458,28968,28969,116,118,117,1175,49787,44388,7453,29047,49788,3990,49789,49790,33423,49791,49792,49793,2303,22438,8641,531,23670,49794,109,2315,7331,6343,7982,28976],"class_list":["post-93171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-abstract","tag-activity","tag-appreciation","tag-background","tag-blur","tag-board","tag-care","tag-center","tag-chair","tag-childcare","tag-children","tag-class","tag-classroom","tag-day","tag-day-nursery","tag-daycare","tag-desk","tag-education","tag-educational","tag-elementary","tag-empty","tag-high","tag-indoor","tag-interior","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-kid","tag-kindergarden","tag-kindergarten","tag-meeting","tag-no-people","tag-no-person","tag-nobody","tag-nursery","tag-pedagogy","tag-playground","tag-playroom","tag-pre","tag-pre-school","tag-preschool","tag-primary","tag-room","tag-school","tag-seat","tag-small","tag-social","tag-table","tag-teacher","tag-training","tag-white","tag-young"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93171\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}