The A courtyard, is a place for lunch and waiting for classes but recently it has become the most bug infested area on campus. The reason;  jadera bugs, they are the red and black bugs that have swarmed the benches and trees. 

“ I strongly dislike them and they are scary because there are so many of them, and they get up in all of my stuff,” said sophomore Kellen Powell. “ They are also disgusting to look at.”

Students aren’t the only ones who have noticed the problem. Students move from class to class but teachers have to put up with the bugs everyday.

“ The infestation is out of control,” said teacher Leigh Sumers. “Obviously we need to eradicate them safely but because we are a school and we need to protect our children but the problem needs to be taken care of realistically.”

Most agree with students that the bugs should be gotten rid of but not everyone is okay with them being killed. Since we are right by the river our ecosystem is different from other school and so we have to be more tolerant to the bugs around us.

“ I have seen it several days where the squirrel comes over to the courtyard and starts to munch down on them,” said teacher Robert Grupp.“ Much as I am a proponent of not putting the lives of insects above the convenience of humans, I don’t actually like to destroy ecosystems either.  I am now hoping that without chemical warfare on the bugs that this natural predator Senior Squirrel, I call him, the bug population may eventually be decreased.” 

People have mixed views on if we should save the bugs or kill the bugs but neither the administration or the students know what truly causes them. Part of it is the ecosystem and other suggest that it is the food that has been left behind by messy students. 

“I think our campus is the most disgusting I have ever seen it especially after lunch and break it is dirty, and students are not cleaning up after themselves,” Sumers said. “ I think it is appalling that students are not cleaning up after themselves and that is further causing the issue.”

However the administration didn’t know about the issue until the interview that we did with Principle Ginter.

“ I had no clue I have been over there but I didn’t take notice of it,” said principal Brian Ginter. 

“ Now that I am aware of something going on over there whenever we have something like that going on I will send the custodial staff over and they call the district, who does pest management, to come and look at it and see if there is something they can do.”

Other than the bugs being annoying to students they don’t actually harm people. They eat the sap from the trees and that’s why they are all circled around the two trees in the courtyard.

The frustrating part is that they are only going to get worse during the fall season because they like the seeds that fall from trees and bushes. We can rake up some of the leaves to reduce the amount of bugs and if absolutely necessary you can call a pest company on them. 

“ I personally don’t like them they are everywhere and swarm all over the benches,” said sophomore Kate Hasseltine. “They seem to have no point in being here except to crawl and annoy people.”