Stabbed in the back by a little rogue

Earlier this school year I decided to try a Donor's Choose project.  It's an awesome website that lets anybody partially or fully fund grants/projects that teachers put together to use with their students.  We were starting a new anti-bullying program and I wanted to do some team building, so I thought it would be fun to get some GPS devices and do some geocaching-like activities with them.  I was fortunate enough to get a project funded and got two units.  Another generous friend donated one she had.  This all came together in the middle of winter.  Suffice to say, conditions were not right for that sort of activity until later in the spring. 

Meanwhile, I was reorganizing some of the rooms in my house and moved all of my computer equipment.  When I looked for the GPS's one of the new ones was missing.  I figured I misplaced it and because it was a product of a grant funded by generous donors, I replaced it.

Finally, a couple of weeks ago, I was able to get everything organized, the weather was better, and testing was over (except for Keystones - sorry Algebra kids), so we got outside.  My kids loved it.  They had so much fun, even though the field was soggy, it was windy, the sun hid, and it even rained a bit.  The most reticent and stubborn kids ran up to me after and asked when we would do it again.  It was a success.

A few days ago, I was cleaning off my work area at school, and one of the GPS devices was missing again.  The one I had just bought.  I had hoped that I had merely misplaced the other one, but now I'm pretty certain.  Somebody stole them from my classroom.  It was also a malicious, intentional theft because they took the newer one each time, even though there were two there and they walked past a bag of 30 graphing calculators and had to go behind my desk to get them.

After all of the uncertainty and negative rhetoric thrown at teachers in the past months, this was the icing on the cake.  It's hard to look at my classes and wonder who took it.  It's hard because I know it was at most a couple of people who are souring my entire perspective and opinion of the other 80 students.  It's hard because I feel betrayed.  At this point, I guess I'll have to rely on somebody coming forward.  Otherwise, I'm out of luck and $300 worth of GPS's.  Thanks, losers.