Teachers in Somerset are afraid of what's flying around their classroom. Bats have invaded a pre-school and they don't seem to be leaving. So why isn't the district expelling the uninvited guests?
Parents are concerned about rabies and bat feces polluting the classroom. Yet the district doesn't seem to be giving the bats the boot.
"One was flying in the hallway and in our classroom," said a 6-year-old student. "One was flying around on top of my teacher's desk. There are little circles of poop that are black. They have claws like this and little eyes," said the 6 year-old. His mother worries that the bats could be making his asthma worse. "Whenever I cough a lot it feels like I'm going to spit up," he said.
Parents and teachers contacted Eyewitness News after bats invaded Somerset Early Childhood. KENS 5 talked to the family of a 6 year-old student who did not want to be identified. "In one weekend they caught over 50 bats in one section of the school," said the mother. "The school really wasn't taking it seriously so I kept pressing the subject."
But Eyewitness News has learned that the Somerset I.S.D. can't just call an exterminator to fix the problem. "Bats are a protected species," said Maury Vasquez, the Somerset spokesman. "We can't just go in there and fog them and kill them," he added.
Instead they removed kids from the classrooms that have had bat sightings. "We played recess early and we went to another class," said one youngster. Meantime workers sealed off the building. "That's so that bats couldn't come back in," said Vasquez. "Now what's left over are just the bats trapped on the inside," he said. "It's tantamount that we keep the kids safe."
The district says that all the bats should be gone by next week. Students will not return to those classrooms until crews have properly cleaned and replaced what they need to.
