09-02-2025
‘To enjoy, not destroy': vandalism escalates at Five Hawks
Five Hawks Elementary School students were among the luckiest in the Prior Lake-Savage Area School District. A few steps behind their school building lay a sprawling outdoor learning center, complete with picnic tables and a gazebo. Over the years the wilderness wonderland – which is open to the community as well – has played host to an array fun and educational activities, including the annual recreation of the Oregon Trail for Five Hawks fifth-graders.
Local Scout troops, many containing Five Hawks alumni, have done projects to improve the center – constructing a fire pit and wood storage, a table and steps – and give back to the place that houses so many memories for so many students.
Last fall, the luck started to run out for the Five Hawks community.
The outdoor learning center has always been a magnet for mischief, according to Five Hawks staff.
'It's escalated in the past few years,' says Dave Ayres, a fifth-grade teacher at the school.
Every now and then it would be someone doodling in pencil or pen on the wood that constructs the gazebo. Someone especially brazen might even carve a benign message into the structure.
'It was usually something a custodian could sand off,' recalls Tim Bell, the principal at Five Hawks.
Those were glory days compared to the situation now. Anyone taking a stroll through the outdoor learning center can see stones, which are used as seats in the amphitheater, that have been removed from the ground and rolled down the hill. Looking down, visitors can see the absence of wood fencing – placed years ago after the school received a grant in order to stop an erosion problem – once used to line the pathway. That treasured rust-colored gazebo has gotten the worst of it, though; many of the wood boards kicked out, rendering it so unsafe that teachers legally cannot bring their classes there for activities anymore.
Visitors brave enough to set into the gazebo can look off the ledge and see cases of beer and cartons of cigarettes – possibly the vandals' detritus. The orange wood in the gazebo is covered with black and powder blue spray-painted messages and drawings, some of which are too vulgar to be reproduced here.
'It's so disheartening,' says Bell.
'It really is because the kids who are running in this neighborhood, they went to Five Hawks,' adds gym teacher Deb Sunderman.
Seven years ago, Five Hawks faced a rash of less-intense incidents. The school responded by asking people in the community to report any strange behavior in the heavily wooded area. While police are very responsive, Bell says, the location makes the area hard to patrol. The awareness worked and the vandalism receded.
But now it's back. Students and staff have offered ideas to quell the crimes – everything from cameras to Sunderman's suggestion of hanging signs that simply read 'This is for you to enjoy, not destroy.'
What if the vandals steal the warnings?
'Laminating paper is a lot cheaper than repairing this,' Bell says.
The staff at Five Hawks is clueless as to why the damage is ramping up now. A fourth-grade class at the school has already volunteered to go door-to-door and drop reminders, asking residents to call 911 if they see or hear anything suspicious in those woods.
Much of the damage has been reported to the authorities but no one has been caught. The damaged picnic tables – which were 'ripped apart,' Sunderman says – have been cleaned up. Ayres is still planning to bring his students out to the center in early June for the Oregon Trail simulation, though he admits he might have to steer clear of the gazebo and its graphic graffiti.
Bell couldn't put a dollar amount on the cost to repair all the damage, with Sunderman adding that it's more an issue of time and effort than of finances.
'If a volunteer would come forward, it would be great,' Bell says as he stands in the gazebo. 'Otherwise, we're going to spend some district or city time putting this back together.'
While he's frustrated and somewhat hesitant, the school will rebuild.
'It's not going to stop us,' he says. 'We'll try everything we can.'
