By Mindy Ragan Wood
Staff Writer
Editor’s note: Piedmont-Surrey Gazette received new information via the Piedmont Public Schools Encumbrance Register Report stating the bed bugs were found at Piedmont Intermediate School not Piedmont Middle School (as previously reported below). Piedmont School district spent $1,000 to treat the school.
Piedmont Middle School was treated for bed bugs after school officials learned of a student who was a carrier but did not notify parents of the issue.
Superintendent James White said during the Monday night board meeting that it was not the first time the district has had to “deal with a situation” where bed bugs come from a student’s home “and bring it into the school.”
Board member Greg Duffy asked why parents were not informed.
“There’s a policy to notify parents if there’s lice,” Duffy said, “but not bed bugs? It looks like it’s an issue with kids bringing home backpacks. They lay their backpacks on the floor…that’s (bed bugs) not something that’s easy to take care of. Lice is easier.”
White said that it all “depends on how it’s contained…on where those things are at.”
Experts have found that bed bugs can rapidly create an infestation when a pregnant female leaves its host and seeks to begin its own colony through creeping into someone’s luggage, purse, or car. A single female bed bug can lay three or four eggs a day, perpetuating a colony infestation of 5,000 bed bugs in six months, according to Terminix.
The Bug Guy pest control services has sprayed once and will return next week for a second treatment at the school.
White told board members that school staff offered to help with the cost of treating the child’s home, but the family declined.
Following the meeting White said they did not notify parents because the school did not have “an outbreak” and they wanted to protect the identity of the student on whose backpack the bug was found.
“We are spraying for things constantly,” White said. “This was just a preventative.”
Duffy remains concerned that other families may have already contracted an infestation.
“I felt like they should have been notified. Just so they can take precautions, so those infestations don’t enter into their home,” Duffy said Tuesday. “All those kids have backpacks and they lay them on the floors. We have a policy to notify parents if there’s head lice and this could be or could have been far more of an issue. I guess we’ll find out.”
