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Tucson police are investigating a string of thefts at a local charter school, but school officials may have caught the suspect themselves.

Police were notified of the incidents on Friday morning, after officials at La Paloma Academy viewed footage from a video camera that a teacher had set up to try to catch the thief, said Raena Janes, La Paloma's founder and director.

The footage showed a female janitor taking $60 in cash and gift certificates from a locked box as she cleaned the building in the middle of the night, Janes said.

The camera was set up Thursday night by Karen Stewart, the classroom's teacher and director of the parent-teacher organization at the school, 2050 N. Wilmot Road.

Police have not made any arrests because the school wants to keep the videotape for "internal purposes," said Tucson Police Department Officer Frank Amado, an agency spokesman.

He said police would not move forward until seeing the videotape. Neither he nor school officials would release the name of the suspect.

Janes said administrators suspected theft for about three weeks. Some eight thefts occurred. She said about $800 had been taken in that time from a locked box containing donations to the school's PTO, in addition to coins Stewart used to teach her third-grade students about making change and counting money.

After noticing the string of thefts, Stewart set up a camera that could record through the night, and she put $60 in the box. On Friday morning, the money was gone, and the tape showed a female janitor picking the lock and taking the money, she and Janes said.

"I just couldn't believe it," Stewart said. "It's clear as can be. You see her take it out of the box, you see her put it in her bra. I could identify the person perfectly."

Stewart, who has been teaching at La Paloma since its 2002 opening, said the thefts began about the same time the school began contracting with a local janitorial company.

Janes and Stewart did not say which company supplied the janitor, but Stewart said the company viewed the videotape and planned to fire the janitor and reimburse the school.

La Paloma's two other campuses, on East Golf Links Road and on North Country Club Road, have not reported any thefts, Janes said, and no other thefts have been reported in the school's four-year history.

Stewart said she was sad that a four-year method of securing money was no longer an option.

"It's hard to say this, but you have to get a safe to put it in," she said. "You live and learn lessons, mostly in hindsight."