VILLA PARK, Calif. – Officials at Villa Park Elementary were forced to call an exterminator after students broke out with itchy red bumps from mites that live on rats while at school.

“It just felt like these little things just crawling all around me on my body. I could see them crawling on my desk, everywhere, on my books, on my neighbor’s desk,” 11-year-old student Mika Slagle told CBS Los Angeles. “It’s just scary. It’s just worrying to worry about your health.”

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The fifth-grader said she discovered itchy red bumps on her back in April, and later learned that the bumps were bites from bugs that live on rodents.

“They figured out that if there are rodent mites which are what these bites are caused by, there has to be rodents,” Slagle said. “So they started setting traps, which led to lots of rats being found.”

Orange County Mosquito and Vector Control District spokeswoman Mary-Joy Coburn told the Orange County Register the agency started receiving calls from parents of children at the school about the bites late last month.

Coburn said at least 10 children and two teachers were bit by the mites and pointed to dirty spaces between bungalows at the school, holes in the building, and a tree brushing up against the roof as contributing factors to the rat problem.

Orange Unified School District Superintendent Michael Christensen blamed the problem on two vacant 1920s buildings on campus that are being prepared for demolition.

“This issue was first discovered when some staff and students reported bug bites, which through the investigation, were identified to be rodent mites,” Christensen wrote in a prepared statement. “While rodents live throughout Southern California in bushes and trees, it is likely that these were disturbed with work preparing to demolish the vacant 1920s buildings on the campus.”

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Exterminators were on campus Tuesday to eradicate the rodents while two classes were moved to nearby Serrano Elementary School to protect students.

Parents, meanwhile, are expressing mixed reactions to the rat and mite infestation.

Kat Roncancio said her fifth-grade daughter came home with bites about a month ago, and she initially suspected the family dogs until her daughter mentioned students could hear rats in the walls and ceiling at school.

“I was a little taken aback,” Roncancio told the Register. “I’ve had two other kids in Villa Park Elementary, and we’ve never been through this. I think for it being maybe their first time going through this, it’s a learning experience to maybe next time handle it better. Just more transparency with the parents.”

Nicol Jones, another parent of a Villa Park fifth-grader, said he thinks school officials are doing their best to fix the issue.

“I feel it’s easy to sit back now and armchair quarterback what’s happened and what should have been done,” he said. “They had never run into this situation before.

“Whenever a new situation presents itself, it takes a little while to get up to speed and develop a new policy on how to handle it,” he continued. “Vector Control was called in, it was all completely appropriate.”

“Just remove them and get some new portable for the children so that the campus going forward is a healthier campus next year,” parent Kathleen Enge told CBS Los Angeles.