Despite efforts by the district to prevent the ongoing rodent incidents at McCallum, the raccoon infestation continues. Two raccoons were reported on campus during the last week of classes before finals.

Following a three-day streak of raccoon sightings and captures from April 26 to 28, AISD contracted with a pest control company to seal up entry points to the school. These efforts proved effective for around two and a half weeks until a raccoon caught in a trap in the ceiling above the library doors on Tuesday, May 16 put an end to that streak.

“[The raccoons] were getting in through on top of the building, or what we call penthouses, which has a lot of our mechanical units,” associate principal Andy Baxa said. “One of those doors was not being secured properly, and they were able to get in through there and any number of the holes around our perimeter.”

Suspected noises from a raccoon were heard from the wall of room 106 on the morning of May 17 and continued the morning of May 18. According to head custodian Daniel Sena, AISD Animal Control searched for the raccoon later that day but did not find one. He told the animal control expert that a custodian reported seeing the raccoon Tuesday evening and it was not a trapped raccoon, but rather a mother caring for her babies.

The library has consistently been a high-activity area for raccoon-related incidents, leading to various traps being placed in the ceiling and elsewhere. This preventative measure has seen success in the captures on April 27 and May 16, but additional measures are still being taken to prevent further incidents.

“[The raccoons] are partly why we’re really strict about food and drink,” Orr said. “I started thinking, ‘There’s a reason why the cafeteria doesn’t have carpet.’ That would be a bad idea. So, no food in the library, because we’re trying to keep them out of this part of the building.”

Orr supported her theory of food being the primary attractor of these animals when remembering how after leaving out a food-ridden garbage bag in front of the library one night before leaving for work, she returned the next morning to see a hole in the ceiling directly above it, complemented by claw marks and urine stains on a nearby wall.

Sena has been working at AISD schools for almost three decades and has had innumerable experiences with pest infiltrations and other animal situations, mainly raccoons. Through his experience, he’s grown to view the creatures as an issue that can’t be permanently solved.

“They’re very smart animals,” Sena said. “They usually don’t get caught in traps. Now, AISD has hired an outside company, and they tried different things, … but these raccoons don’t get scared.”

After recalling the incident on March 27 in which a the smell of a dead raccoon, trapped and left to rot after injury, filled about half the school, Sena expressed great concern regarding raccoon safety.

“The one thing [outside companies] don’t know about raccoons is that they tend to come back to where they were born,” Sena said. “We had a family here, so we believe that some of them have come back. Just this morning, I saw two raccoons running from across the street and they went into the storm drain.”

Despite all the raccoons do, though, Sena still does not feel threatened by their presence.

“I’ve never felt like I’m in danger because of the raccoons,” Sena said. “They’re real smart and they get more scared of me than I am of them. Most of the times, they tend to go back up… they feel safe there.”

While the raccoons might not seem threatening to humans, the raccoons and the humans both might agree that the same can’t be said for the possum caught in a raccoon trap that reportedly led to a flea infestation and subsequent fumigation of the English hall after two English teachers on that hallway reported fleas in their classrooms the week of final exams.

The end of the 2022-2023 school year has not brought an end to the ongoing saga of campus encounters with rodents. Perhaps it will be a different story this summer.

 

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