OISD annihilates mouse infestation
School administrators have a mouse problem under control two weeks after parents complained at a school board meeting about a bumper crop of the critters on campus.
Several parents attended the Olney school board’s Sept. 23 meeting to inform trustees that their children were suffering from an allergic-type reaction to what they thought was a mice infestation or a change in cleaners or chemicals used at the campuses.
The parents reported that 10 children on the Olney Elementary School and Junior High School campuses were suffering from similar symptoms and asked school administrators to investigate.
The Olney Independent School District has an enrollment of approximately 648 children – meaning that about 1.5 percent of the student body was experiencing symptoms.
OISD Superintendent Dr. Greg Roach said administrators swung into action, “bumped up” the cleaning protocols, and brought in health inspectors to get recommendations. The maintenance staff is now wiping surfaces, vacuuming hardto- reach areas behind furniture and inside closets, and urging teachers to clean out their classroom closets.
“Something good always comes out of a problem because now we are reminded to check those forgotten areas,” he said.
The district set more sticky traps inside the classrooms and in the ceilings, trucked furniture out, and patched multiple holes that had been covered up by that furniture, he said. The maintenance staff added multiple outdoor bait traps to prevent the rodents from entering the building, and discovered a nontoxic substance made of cornstarch and salt that will kill mice by dehydrating them, Dr. Roach said.
Although the school maintenance staff has not changed the cleaning products they use, Dr. Roach urged parents to share the results of any allergy tests performed on the children.
“We don’t know that some kind of chemical is causing that and to be totally fair to parents we don’t know if something is not,” he said. “We want to find it and then fix it.”
City health inspectors scrutinized the cafeteria and buildings and recommended that OISD maintain the heightened cleaning schedule.
Olney Police Chief Dan Birbeck, who oversees health inspections, said the City’s health inspectors visited the campus twice and determined that the problem has been mitigated.
“We inspected it on two occasions,” Chief Birbeck said. “They were taking all the appropriate measures to address the situation and had done quite a bit of remediation as far as getting rid of the rodents. On the second inspection, there were no more being trapped, meaning they got them.”
Although food and serving items are always stored inside sealed plastic containers, the district increased the number of cafeteria items that will be stored in containers, he said.
District administrators considered closing the campus to fumigate the buildings but found that state health regulations made this option impractical, Dr. Roach said.
“There were some questions about fumigating,” he said. “We would be out of school for two months. Anything strong enough to kill rodents stays active and looks like we would have to keep the building clear for at least a month.”
Dr. Roach said district staff will stay vigilant, and asked parents to come to him with suggesting. “We are wide open,” he said. “The bottom line is we have all got to work the problem and if we are not working the problem we are part of the problem.”