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Greenville school takes action on bed bugs

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By Kareem Elgazzar, Staff Writer 4:21 PM Thursday, February 9, 2012

GREENVILLE — Officials at Greenville City Schools say parents need not worry about a recent discovery of bed bugs on students.

District leaders told the Dayton Daily News they follow a specific notification protocol depending on where a bed bug is found, and are working to prevent any possible infestation on school grounds.

Superintendent Susie Riegle said bed bugs were found Jan. 20 on the book bag and coat of two different students at Woodland Primary School — a kindergarten through second-grade facility.

Bed bugs were found on one of the students a week later, prompting school and county health department officials to visit the parents of the two students on Monday and provide guidelines on how to mitigate the problem, Riegle said.

“We immediately contacted the health department for confirmation about what it actually was,” Riegle said.

Parents and guardians were first notified of the bed bugs on Feb. 6, —more than two weeks after the last incident.

“They didn’t notify anybody and I’m outraged,” said Chrissy Ross, 32, whose nephew attends Woodland Primary School. “They are so vague in the letter because they state they found one bug on a student’s jacket; a lot of parents have kids in other schools and it could be spread without knowing.”

The district said it has two scenarios for which protocols are put into place.

If bed bugs are sighted in a classroom environment, the next course of action is to notify all parents, according to a health department protocol flow chart obtained by the Dayton Daily News.

In a case of bed bugs found on clothing or belongings, a more discreet course of action ensues by examining the student’s clothes and locker, and notify the student’s parents, according to the protocol.

“If it’s found in the classroom environment, that’s when you send the notification to parents immediately,” Riegle said. “It is evident the sources were not on school property and we really went above and beyond when it comes to notification because they weren’t found in a classroom environment.”

Darke County Health Department officials conducted an inspection at the homes and determined there was evidence of bed bugs.

Health department investigators confirmed Woodland Primary is not infested with bed bugs early this week, said Health Commissioner Terry Holman. There have been no other complaints throughout the county, Holman said.

The school has hired a private exterminating firm to spray the rooms the two students were in.

“The health department is telling us we don’t have to go that far (spraying the rooms), but we are going that far as a precaution.” Riegle said. “They were found on the a child’s school or bag, they haven’t been found at the school.”

Why bed bugs remain in U.S.

The Ohio Department of Health says bed bugs were nearly eradicated in the United States in the 1950s, but changing pesticide use in combination with international travel and commerce left an opening for bed bugs to again take hold in the United States.

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