Students, staff say bats are still inside school, cafeteria at East Austin College Prep

AUSTIN, Texas - Last week, East Austin College Prep sent a letter to parents, saying they found a bat in the main building. They moved classes to portables for two days. After animal control removed the bat, everyone was allowed back inside.

Since then, students and staff say they can still hear multiple bats inside of the school.

On Tuesday the school confirmed they actually found three bats inside the school last week. They were removed and tested negative for rabies.

RELATED: Live bats removed from East Austin Elementary School

However, the students are saying they can still hear them inside the walls and some have even had physical contact with them. Now, employees who do not want to be identified are not only concerned about the bats still being inside the school, but their droppings not being cleaned up as well.

Last Wednesday parents received a letter from East Austin College Prep,  saying they discovered a bat, but what the letter did not include was that it wasn't just one bat, but a colony of bats.

Employees were notified earlier.

“They said I have to tell you that we have bats in the main building, One of the bats ran across her foot and another kid said a bat flew near his face.”

Two employees say Orkin came to create a cone so the bats can funnel out of the school and can't come back in. On Tuesday employees were told they are "bat-free" but students have been reporting otherwise.

“Some student-athletes who were on campus on Saturday, one of the girls said a bat was in the girls' toilet and a boy said a bat was in the boys restroom and they filmed it on Snapchat and they were asked to delete it," an employee said.

“Bats are roosting above the gym which is also the cafeteria and the coach asked them to be quiet and they could hear the bats in the tubes of the basketball goal and in the ceiling," an employee said.

They're also concerned about bat droppings making unsanitary conditions, and overall the children’s well-being.

RELATED: Texas Parks & Wildlife concerned for Austin bat population due to white-nose syndrome

“If parents were to be more well informed, they'd take action, they'd call the school and would express their concerns," an employee said.

The public school's superintendent sent a statement they released last week saying:

“Earlier this week, we discovered three bats in one of our school facilities. We immediately contacted animal control to help with the removal and testing. Thankfully, no one was hurt during the incident and the tests for rabies came back negative. We have hired a pest control firm to thoroughly clean and install devices to minimize the chances of this happening again.”

The employee says, “it feels like they don't care about these kids. They are low, at-risk, brown and black kids and that's what it feels like, if this were an affluent school, they would have shut it down right away, everybody would have been tested for rabies but these kids, it feels like nobody cares about them except for the people that work with them.”

Both employees say they believe the administration deeply cares about students but the school's parent company Southwest Key does not. They say it because the school gets money based on attendance. If they temporarily shut the school down to fix what's going on, they would lose money from absences.