All legal guardians of students got a call on August 14 informing them a student was sent home due to having bed bugs in their book bag and bites on their arm. The pests entered the school on August 13 but were not found until the following day.

The student went into the health office with mosquito like bites and they identified the bites as bed bug bites, the student was sent home soon after. Many students weren’t aware of this problem and those who were didn’t know much about bed bugs at all.

“I didn’t even know about them being in our school,” sophomore Kayla Satomi said.

Bed bugs, or cimicosis, are blood sucking insects who tend to stick around the chosen host. These tiny little pests are known for their smell which resembles rotting raspberries.

Straub said classrooms were evacuated and closed off with the classes in them moved to different locations for safety cautions. The classrooms are being investigated and sprayed in case of any more bed bugs. The school has also been visited by dogs who were trained to search for bed bugs.

Although students apparently didn’t have much to worry about.

“Bed bugs are mostly nocturnal and barely move during the day so the probability of them moving around and infecting the whole school was very small.” School nurse Misty Garrison said.

Most of the information is classified and the school staff are making sure the student remains unknown.

18agonzalez@usd489.com