Three Lincoln schools have been targeted by vandals and burglars since this weekend.

Someone broke into Pershing Elementary late Tuesday or early Wednesday, smashing a classroom window at the back of the school.

They then roamed the school, looking for computers and cash, said Dennis Van Horn, Lincoln Public Schools associate superintendent for business affairs.

The damage totalled $800. Total loss was $10,839, according to Lincoln Police Officer Katherine Finnell.

They got into classrooms, the media center, main office and nurse’s office, and computer labs.

In the principal’s office, they stole a laptop computer, took 12 Motorola two-way radios from a charging base in a central office and forced their way into a safe to steal $511 collected at a book sale in the past week.

They took computers and LCD projectors from the nurse’s office, a computer lab and library, a DVD player from the music room and a Polaroid camera from the auditorium.

Hill Elementary has been victimized twice.

Vandals broke in late Sunday or early Monday, ransacking the office and stealing $243 from two cash boxes.

Then late Monday or early Tuesday, someone broke in the same door, apparently with the intent of doing as much damage as possible.

They vandalized two classrooms, breaking a fish aquarium and killing a guinea pig on loan from a student,  Van Horn said.

They popped cans of food collected for a food drive and flung the contents around the room. They pulled books off shelves in the library and dumped a desktop computer. They wrecked a paper towel dispenser, busted a florescent light and poked holes in ceiling tiles.

Hill Principal Don Rangel said a fleet of people arrived early to clean so students would not realize what happened.

“It has not been a topic of conversation,” he said. “We want life to feel normal.”

The guinea pig had been a gift from a second-grader to a first-grade classroom. It had been brought in after school the day before the break-in, so the kids in the room had not even seen it yet, Rangel said.

Over the weekend, someone also broke into a portable classroom at Arnold Elementary, pried open a cabinet and took a Canon digital camera.

“It seems like we go through cycles,” Van Horn said.

The district will continue to look at ways to make buildings more secure.

In middle schools and high schools, custodians work three shifts so someone is at the schools overnight.

Van Horn said a third custodian shift started at Hill on Tuesday night.

Finnell said police will try to determine if any evidence links the break-ins.

Reach JoAnne Young at 473-7228 or jyoung@journalstar.com.