HAMILTON - For kids, a few extra days of summer break are exciting.
However, for parents and teachers ready to start the next educational year, a delay can be taxing.
Students at Hamilton Middle School will be returning later than planned due to bats in the school's main building.
"That could be anywhere from five to 25," Hamilton Schools Superintendent Dave Thennis said, detailing the number of bats that have been in the school.
Watch to learn more about the bats in Hamilton Middle School:
Recently, Hamilton discovered an unwanted presence.
"Our maintenance supervisor had come in and said, 'Hey, I've got this issue going', and it kind of took me back a little bit. I wasn't expecting him to talk to me about bats," Thennis told MTN.
Thennis says Hamilton then brought in experts to find and remove the bats.
"It looked like they were entering underneath some metal flashing around a boiler," Thennis explained. "They end up setting up an exit only sort of strategy for the bats and then you obviously have to fix the entrances where they think they're getting in," he continued.
For safety reasons, the district pushed back the first day of school until September 2 at 8:15 a.m.
"The concern about rabies and things like that if there is a lot of guano. Then there are some other things that can be problems for respiration for kids or adults," Thennis said, citing health concerns.
Since the district is starting later, Thennis says they reached their days-off limit and future unpredictable closures like snow days won't be without class.
"School calendars are built around the expectation of instructional hours. If the weather's bad, we'll provide instruction remotely, which isn't ideal, but it's better than none," Thennis said.
On Friday, August 22, with no signs of bats in the school for over a day, staff are coming back into the building.
"The teachers are in today because we haven't had signs of bats, so they're getting themselves ready to go," Thennis stated.
He thinks that once classes are underway, some students may have a topic they want to learn about first.
"I think there's going to be this interest in learning about bats," Thennis said.
