Students and staff at Lakeland Elementary/Middle School woke up to a disturbing sight last Friday – somebody had burned up the slide, jungle-gym and other playground structures at the south Baltimore school. All that remained was a blackened, smouldering mess of plastic and metal.

“It sucks. We don’t know who did it or how it happened,” principal Najib Jammal said. “It happened the night before, at 11 or 11:30 pm. Somebody just torched it.”

“It’s sad,” Jammal said, describing the loss of the playground as akin to a death in the family. “The children were really upset.”

Jammal said he hoped the school would be able to rebuild and still wasn’t sure, when The Brew spoke with him by phone, how they were going to be able to pay for it.

“We’re going to put our heads together and figure it out,” Jammal said, noting that the playground is unfenced and community members use it as well. “I told the children ‘Don’t worry, somehow we are going to rebuild it.’”

Jammal said he would welcome help from others in the city. The Stadium Place playground in Waverly, burned by vandals in 2008, was rebuilt by volunteers in 2009.