GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

Teachers who are concerned about bedbugs in their schools have a new way to seek relief.

The Department of Education has set up a new email address —bedbugconcerns@schools.nyc.gov — to receive complaints about bedbugs in city schools. School officials can also send photographic evidence of suspected bedbugs to the address so the department can identify, and try to end, infestations.

The new procedure was made public today by Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, who is counting the address’s creation as a personal victory. Stringer asked the city last year to let school personnel submit bedbug evidence by email, according to a press release from his office. Until now, school officials had to send physical specimens by mail to a department office in Queens in order to initiate treatment, according to Stringer’s announcement, a process that cost precious time in the fight against the invaders.

The city has long maintained that bedbugs are not a major problem for schools, but parents and school personnel continue to complain about the pests — often without getting a response.

“Several teachers in my school have found bedbugs in their classrooms. At least one has given a bedbug sample to the principal. A student even complained of being bit by bedbugs in the classroom,” a teacher wrote to GothamSchools today. “My principal is not remotely interested in the issue and does not respond to staff emails about our concerns. What can we do?” (more…)

Teachers at a school where four classrooms were damaged by a bedbug fumigation are are holding a fundraiser this weekend to replace the supplies they lost.

Seven teachers at P.S. 197 lost thousands of dollars worth of books and other supplies when four of the school’s classrooms were treated for bedbugs earlier this year with liquid instead of air-based fumigation, said Lucille Mauro, the school’s teachers union chapter leader. To help replace the supplies, a group of teachers at the Midwood, Brooklyn school is throwing a car wash at the school tomorrow from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.

“We’re just happy to get anything back,” Mauro said.

The Department of Education is waiting for the results of a state Department of Environmental Conservation investigation before it decides whether to replace the supplies, said spokeswoman Marge Feinberg. The city has also banned the vendor it used to fumigate the school, she said.

Mauro said staff at the school expect to eventually be reimbursed for at least some of the damaged supplies. But in the meantime, the teachers must teach. The car wash is an attempt to help prevent the seven teachers from falling behind, she said.

“Everything’s a procedure, and so we’re just sitting back waiting and it’s hard to wait,” Mauro said. “The teachers really want to get back on their feet and get back into their routine.”

Following reports of principals using a heavy hand to drum up school participation in the city’s annual Learning Environment Survey, here’s one Brooklyn student’s more lighthearted approach.

This “Peanuts”-inspired home-made ad is brought to you by a family at Brooklyn’s P.S. 29. That school’s survey response rate was at about 39 percent today, four days before Friday’s deadline for returning the form, according to the school’s parent association website.

The survey results — as well as the rates at which parents, teachers and students respond to them — count for 10 percent of a school’s grade on its annual high-stakes report cards.