Glendore Public mother-of-three Tania Duggan said parents had been calling for four years for the Maryland school’s waist-high fencing to be replaced with security fencing, which she said could have prevented Sunday night’s break and enter. 

Glendore relieving principal Khalil Khay told parents on Monday the school had been “the subject of significant unwarranted vandalism”, affecting two classrooms, the library and the administration building.

Meanwhile Lake Macquarie High, at Booragul, also suffered “significant criminal damage” on the weekend that affected many areas of the school, virtually shutting it to students on Monday. Only minimal supervision was available and the school’s phone lines were not working. Police said the vandals “did do quite a lot of damage, quite a few classrooms were trashed”. Principal Brendan Maher declined to comment on the extent of the damage, but said it had been an “inconvenience”. The school will return to normal operation today.

Police said alarms at Glendore were triggered at 8pm on Sunday after vandals started “damaging windows and doors and ransacking the rooms”. Wallsend MP Sonia Hornery said a “large amount of electronic equipment” was stolen. She said Glendore had suffered “regular vandalism and break-ins” in recent years and she had spoken to the Minister for Education about security fencing twice this year.

A spokesperson for the department said “security fencing is provided to schools on the basis of their comparative levels of risk under the Security Initiatives Program”. “Glendore Public School will be considered for inclusion in the 2019/2020 program.”

Ms Hornery started a petition on Monday asking the government to “fast track” the security fence. 

Parent Ms Duggan said she collected 180 signatures outside the school on Monday afternoon. A glazier was still on site when the bell rang.  “We have an incident of vandalism or break and enter about once every six to 12 months,” Ms Duggan said.

“It makes us feel pretty crappy. We’ve been vandalised twice in the past two months – last time they got into the safe in the school holidays. We need a big, black steel fence to keep our kids safe and give them a better environment at school. We don’t want anybody off the street coming in to the school day or night.”

Ms Hornery said Glendore and Minmi were the only schools in the area without security fencing and she had contacted Minister for Education Rob Stokes about the matter in February and August. 

Ms Hornery’s office said the department said in November it would conduct a risk assessment, which Ms Hornery’s office understood had been completed and had concluded security fencing was not required. 

The spokesperson for the department declined to comment on the risk assessment, but said its School Security Unit had been working with the school to “provide an extension to its existing security system”. 

“It continues to monitor security incidents and issues at the school and will provide advice and assistance as required,” the spokesperson said. “The unit also provides additional security patrols to schools, particularly during the high-risk vacation periods.”

Damage at Lake Macquarie High – which does have security fencing – was not visible from outside the school on Monday afternoon, but several tradespeople were still working at the site. Lake Macquarie duty inspector Phil Cosgriff said the school’s cleaner had called police at 4am on Monday.  “We took the report and sent our forensic services operator to the scene and that took him several hours,” Inspector Cosgriff said. He said the operator would have been looking for “fingerprints and DNA” that might assist police inquiries. 

“We won’t know for a while if there’s anything from that investigation.” He said he didn’t know if any items had been stolen.

Principal Brendan Maher praised the community for rallying and helping the school return to normality so quickly.  “Parents have been here since 7.30am cleaning up, the director [of schools] has been here since 6.30am and our two school captains were here helping and speaking to other students.” 

The school executive also thanked cleaning and repair contractors for their “prompt work”.