Kids: The other endangered species

McDonogh 35 High will have to remain batty for a while longer.

The variety of bat infesting the New Orleans school, you see, is an endangered species. You can't harm a little bat hair on their little bat heads. And now, apparently, the "exterminators" have to . . . not do that.

Instead, they have to catch and release all the remaining bats. Meanwhile, the endangered kids inside McDonogh 35 have to hope they don't come down with bat-scratch fever. Or something.

NOW, don't get me wrong. I don't want to kill the little endangered winged mammals -- bats have their place in this world, albeit not inside somebody's kid's school.

On the other hand, wouldn't it be nice if our society placed the same emphasis on the health and well-being of its children as it does on that of a bat?

Apparently, we can move heaven and earth not to kill the winged love children of Grandpa Munster, but -- in Louisiana, at least -- no one can lift a finger to make sure kids have clean, well-maintained and bat-free public schools.

In the Gret Stet, among other places, you have to pay the "private-school tax" for that. That's because, when it comes right down to it, we don't give a bat's ass about our children -- or the future they represent.

MAYBE INSTEAD of worrying about the bats in McDonogh 35's belfry, the now-kinder and gentler "exterminators" ought to be trapping the McDonogh 35 student body . . . and safely releasing it far, far away from the Gret Stet of Loosiana.