Post by Moses on Nov 3, 2005 8:51:01 GMT -5
Nov. 02, 2005
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
Teachers: Stop playing cat-and-mouse
Middle school rat infestation has protesters out on street during lunch
By ANTONIO PLANAS
REVIEW-JOURNAL
Holding up signs that read "Honk if you hate rats!" and "Teachers have nowhere to eat," about 60 instructors at Fremont Middle School on Tuesday took turns eating their lunches on the sidewalk to draw attention to a rodent problem.
School District officials, with the Clark County Health District, have been killing rodents at the school for about two weeks.
The kitchen at the school has been closed since Oct. 14 by Health District order. School officials are providing sack lunches to students.
The only areas in the school that have been declared safe in which to eat are the gymnasium and the teachers' lounge, according to teachers, who say rats recently have been caught in both places.
Dave Broxterman, the district's administrative manager of facilities, said a rat had been caught in the teachers' lounge, but he was unable to confirm whether any rodent was caught in the gymnasium.
Thirteen rodents have been caught by traps at the school, he said, but tests by the Health District haven't detected disease.
"We're out here on the students' behalf because they're not given a choice of where they can eat," said Lisa Harkrader, a seventh-grade reading teacher.
"The students have to eat with the rats."
The rats at the school have been identified as roof rats, Broxterman said.
Their average length is about 14 inches, including the tail, and the rodents typically weigh about 9 ounces.
Principal Ben Montoya said he wasn't upset at his teachers for demonstrating outside the school and would like to see the problem solved soon.
"They have a legitimate concern, because they have no place to eat," Montoya said of the teachers.
"Anytime you have rats anywhere, it's a health problem."
Teachers demonstrated in groups of about 20 during their 30-minute lunch break.
Montoya and several teachers said they have not seen any rats themselves during school hours.
The principal stopped short of saying school should be canceled, leaving that decision to the Health District.
Broxterman said closing the school is not an option.
He said that would occur only if there were signs that the rats had infiltrated classrooms.
"Right now, we're not anywhere close to that type of contamination," he said.
Broxterman urged teachers to be patient, and said that officials hope the problem can be resolved by Veterans Day weekend.
Killing the rodents by poisoning them is not an option, because it would jeopardize the safety of students, he said.
Fremont, on St. Louis Avenue near Maryland Parkway and Sahara Avenue, is the oldest middle school in the valley, but Broxterman said the school's age is not a factor in its rodent problem.
The problem lies more in the general infestation of the Las Vegas Valley.
The rats are nonindigenous to the Las Vegas Valley, arriving here on imported palm and fruit trees.
Broxterman said Becker Middle School in Summerlin also had a rodent problem this summer, one that took officials about a month to resolve using traps and bait.
Becker was built in 1993.
David Soto, a teacher of students whose primary language is not English, said teachers will be eating their lunches outside until the problem is resolved.
"There is a rat problem here," Soto said. "This is the only place we can eat," he said, pointing to the sidewalk.
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