GARLAND – SAD 46 officials and Penobscot County deputies are stymied about the motivation behind repeated break-ins at the Garland Elementary School.

School personnel arrived Wednesday morning to discover – for the third time – that someone had entered the school through a window, opened a soda machine and removed a handful of change.

“There has been no vandalism, thank goodness, and no destruction of school property,” Superintendent Ray Poulin said Wednesday afternoon. “It appears someone’s only intent is to get a little extra change.”

Poulin said that although school personnel have been careful in the wake of previous break-ins to close and lock all windows, whoever has been entering the school has come in through unlocked windows and used a key to get into the soda machine.

“This is the third time,” said Poulin. “They come in the same way; it’s the same situation.”

Poulin said the Penobscot County Sheriff’s Department is investigating the pattern of break-ins.