GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

With school doors set to open in just weeks, City Councilwoman Gale Brewer wants to know why the education department hasn’t hired a contractor to handle the resurgence of bedbugs in its classrooms.

“I ask that you immediately initiate a bedbug treatment contract to deal with this issue before the start of the school year,” Brewer wrote to Chancellor Dennis Walcott last month.

Brewer penned the letter in response to a GothamSchools report that showed a tripling in the number of bedbugs cases found in schools last year, to 3,590.

The surge of cases has placed strain on the Department of Education’s pest management division, which is required to treat every case of bedbugs. Normally, that work is handled by a private pest management company, but schools have been without a specialized contractor for nearly a year.

Bidding on the new contract began nine months ago, but the DOE has yet to award it, spokeswoman Marge Feinberg said. Feinberg said that the city planned to respond to the letter, which also requested a list of the schools that were treated for bedbugs, but had not yet done so. (more…)