Bedbugs closed a Charleston elementary school on Friday morning, and school officials said they would treat the building over the next two weekends.
Chamberlain Elementary Principal Phoebe McCloud said the parasites were first found at the Kanawha City school on Thursday morning, when a girl opened her agenda book. McCloud said the girl went to the school clinic and the teacher took the rest of the class outside for the remainder of the day.
"Thank God for good weather," the principal said.
She said an Orkin exterminator arrived at the school around noon and confirmed one dead insect was a bedbug. Because the exterminator said the insects only travel about 3 to 5 feet from belongings, McCloud said only the upper-level classroom -- where the girl's locker and bookbag were located -- and library were treated Thursday night.
But on Friday morning, another bug was found beside the clinic, which is on a lower level, so school officials decided to treat the entire building.
"Hindsight -- don't carry a book around with bugs in it," McCloud said. She said the school doesn't have an outbreak of the parasites, but she doesn't want it "to become an issue." The principal told the roughly 240 students to leave all their belongings at the school as they left Friday. They were dismissed at 10:30 a.m.
Jane Roberts, assistant superintendent for the county's elementary schools, said students will return to Chamberlain on Monday, and they'll be sent home with information on how to identify bedbugs.
First-grade teacher Lindsay Beckett was among several Chamberlain employees helping children to cars lined up along Venable Avenue Friday in front of the school.
"I just want to go take a shower," she said.
April Barnes, who was in a car near the front of the line to pick up her two kids, said she wasn't concerned.
"People need to learn that it doesn't come from people who are living in poverty," Barnes said. She said Chamberlain is one of the county's safest schools, and she drives out of her normal attendance zone to sent her kids there.
"This is a wonderful school," she said.
The website for the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states that bedbugs "have been found in five-star hotels and resorts and their presence is not determined by the cleanliness of the living conditions where they are found."
The CDC says bedbugs includes different species of small parasites that feed on the blood of humans and animals while they sleep. The CDC doesn't consider them a health hazard and says they don't transmit disease, though they can cause allergic reactions.
Roberts said Kanawha schools don't see bedbugs often -- this is the first incident she knows of this school year, and only one student had them last school year.
Jerry Burgess, who was picking up his grandchildren Friday, said a school counselor told him to make sure they changed their clothes as a precaution.
His grandkids -- Isabella White, 6, and Dominic Burgess, 5 -- were just excited to be going to 7-Eleven to get Icees.
"His dad doesn't ever allow it," Burgess said. "But he's at work."
Reach Ryan Quinn at ryan.quinn@wvgazette.com, 304-348-1254 or follow @RyanEQuinn on Twitter.