Schools' rat patrols take on tough job

[Texsox]

CHICAGO, Illinois (AP) -- Anthony Williams spends his days combing over city schools property looking for cracked walls, cluttered closets and leaky pop machines -- anything that could provide access, cover or food for mice and rats.

 

Williams is one of about 30 rodent inspectors a day who scour every classroom, boiler room, kitchen and closet in the nation's third-largest school district after a spate of school closures prompted Chicago schools chief Arne Duncan to publicly call workers on the carpet in January.

 

"I am putting every school-based employee on notice today: If you can't keep your schools clean, we'll find someone else who can," Duncan said in January after city sanitation crews shut down food service at 13 schools because they found rodent droppings in kitchens, cafeterias and classrooms.

 

Keeping schools rodent-free is a tough assignment that plagues districts nationwide. New York Public Schools, for instance, checks each of its 1,200 schools for rats about every six weeks.

 

"It's a universal problem," said Robert Corrigan, a rodent control consultant based in Richmond, Indiana. "It's an inner city, suburban and rural problem. ... Try to rodent-proof your house and see how difficult that is, but then take a school ... it's a tremendous, tremendous challenge, not to mention it costs a lot money."

 

Over the next couple of months Chicago's inspectors will search and clean all 600 public schools at a cost of $2 million to $4 million. Duncan says he expects each school to keep itself clean and rat-free after that.

 

Crews started work in January on the district's largest schools and those with poor cleanliness records. A second wave of inspections started in mid-February, and a third wave began in early March.

 

Though searching for rodent evidence is on top of their list, crews are also looking for dirt, clutter and cracks. Previous school inspections were usually limited to school kitchens and cafeterias, but the recent blitz includes boiler rooms, teachers' lounges and classrooms.

 

"If you can put a pen through a hole, then they [mice] can get through," said Williams, a quality assurance coordinator for Chicago Public Schools.

 

Williams and three other inspectors recently spent several hours at a local elementary school, telling teachers to put candy in glass jars with lids, and peering under bookshelves and behind refrigerators in search of rodent droppings and piles of dust. They looked through basement vents and lifted lids off recycling containers to see what was inside.

 

The top item on the "to-do" list they compiled for the school was to clean up a pop machine in the school's makeshift teachers lounge where rodent droppings were found. Other items included patching up holes in the walls, putting screens on vents and attaching sweeps under doors to keep rodents from sliding underneath.

 

"For an old building, it's not bad," Williams said of the 96-year-old school. "But it does have a lot of old holes in it. ... A lot of general cleaning needs to be done."

 

Regular cleaning and maintenance is a central element of Detroit Public Schools' rodent-control plan, said the program's manager, DeWitte Lee. The district inspects high schools twice a month and smaller schools once a month.

 

"Rodents can crawl into the smallest crack or crevice," Lee said. "The key is ongoing inspections of the exterior of buildings."

 

Chicago Public Schools hopes the blitz encourages students, staff and teachers to create a culture of cleanliness so schools don't rely on inspectors to point out cracked walls, leaky pop machines and cluttered closets, spokesman Mike Vaughn said.

 

"We're hoping to create a mind-set that everyone take responsibility for the cleanliness of their schools," he said.

[whitesoxin']

I hope they don't check my Biology classroom. We are disecting rats now, so there are rats everywhere.

[DBAHO]

Lunchlady Doris must still have a job.