Clifford Rash Response Cost $78,000

It can be a parent’s worst nightmare, your child coming home with that has also affected his or her classmates as well.

“It looked like my son rolled around in a flea’s nest,” said kindergarten parent Niki Kolokithas of the dozens of bites that covered her son’s torso and arms.

To identify the exact cause, the pulled out all stops, from a bed-bug sniffing dog Curly to freeze drying clothing to consulting a UC Davis entomologist. Based on the report, the district believes that the rash was a series of : tiny, slender bugs with fringed wings, more commonly know as thunderflies. View the entomologist’s attached report.

Safety has always been a primary concern, district staff said at the Oct. 12 board meeting. And they were willing to employ any and all methods to discover what the cause was, totaling $78,000.

But Clifford School will not have to pay the costs out of pocket. If the district’s insurance company does not cover the cost of this “unusual claim,” the district will use money from the Deferred Maintenance Fund, according to district spokesperson Naomi Hunter.

California’s Education Code requires that school districts set aside a certain amount of money for particular incidents just like this one. It is specifically earmarked for repairing and maintaining facilities, not for teacher salaries or class size reduction.

“The flooring and many other items were already scheduled to be replaced within the next few years as part of the regular maintenance of the school,” Hunter wrote in an email. “The clean-up necessitated by the insect situation just pushed the schedule forward.”

At the end of the 2010-2011 school year, the school had , according to Hunter.