We drive past it every day and don’t give it much more than a  “tsk, tsk.”

Those strange, almost foreign looking splashes of spray paint. Graffiti.

You don’t have to drive far too come across it. Most municipal property have it somewhere, and many private businesses as well – the back of the local grocery store, the electrical box in the park, the pump house at the water reservoir, the sides of downtown businesses.

Schools, perhaps because of their very nature, are particularly hard-hit targets, and not just for graffiti. Broken windows and other malicious, senseless damage are also commonplace.

“Tsk, tsk.” It’s petty crime, small potatoes though, right? Well, think again. Simcoe County District School Board trustees learned this week that when it was all added up, vandalism to schools cost the board (and ultimately taxpayers) more than $1 million in 2006 and 2007, and will likely cost the same again this year.

Those are some pretty pricy small potatoes.

It’s a figure that made trustees decide to revisit the issue of installing security cameras at Simcoe County schools, and rightly so. And while the cameras might not end the problem outright, they certainly would be a deterrent and a good start.

One person’s art is another’s trash, and graffiti has been referred to as ‘street art.’ But even if it is, that doesn’t give the ‘artist’ the right to use any space, private or public, as a canvas.

Trustee Diane Firman said it best when she said schools and the board need to work with the entire community to deal with vandalism.

“It’s not a school problem, it’s not a police problem. It’s everyone’s problem.”

We all need to just stop treating it as small potatoes.