Friday, August 31, 2007
Editorial: We smell a rat
The rats at Fairview Elementary School didn't just move in overnight.
From the RoundTable blog
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We don't know about you, but if a rat were to drop out of a ceiling tile right now or skitter across our floor, we're thinking we'd deal with it. ASAP. Like yesterday.
Rats are nasty, disease-bearing creatures that gnaw through walls, wiring, insulation, books, food pantries, whatever. They are not a force to ignore.
Yet, that is exactly what past Roanoke administrations have done. On Wednesday, the city schools' new superintendent Rita Bishop announced students wouldn't begin the year at Fairview Elementary. They will instead be bused to trailers at Preston Park until a rat infestation is finally taken care of.
Bishop didn't want to cast blame on her predecessors -- we'll do that for her -- but she did note that she has two memos about the gnarly beasts: one concerning a rat falling from the ceiling, the other detailing a dash across a classroom. Fairview Principal Julie Bush said she first requested in 2005 to have the rats exterminated.
Hello? It's two years later. Do we need to brush up on our biology lessons to recall that rats quickly beget more rats? Remember "Willard"?
It isn't as though they are going to pick up and move, especially when no one's served them a poisonous eviction notice.
Who knows? Fairview students might even have rejoined the classroom rats if not for two anonymous tipsters complaining to the Virginia Department of Health. That led to an inspection Aug. 9 and the discovery, or should we say confirmation, of the rats. But it wasn't until later in the month that the school's deputy superintendent for operations learned of the infestation and called an exterminator.
Apparently, the rats have taken over in numbers too great to remove prior to Tuesday's school start. In fact it may take a month to clear the rodents from Fairview.
That the building was invaded by rats is no reflection on the school or the school system. That it was ignored is.
Bishop knew she was inheriting a rats' nest of problems when she took this job. She probably didn't realize that wasn't just a figurative one.
