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Bats interrupted class at an East Side middle school for the second day in a row Friday.

More than 800 students from Magee Middle School, 8300 E. Speedway, were bused around the corner to Sahuaro High School after officials found 40 bats in Magee's crawl spaces.

Fourteen bats were removed from the same school Thursday. And an animal removal company captured nine on Feb. 28, too.

Although the bats were removed by the time class began, students were put on "soft lockdown" from 8 to 10 a.m., meaning they stayed in their classrooms with the doors shut.

Students then were bused to Sahuaro as a precaution, since bats can carry rabies and district safety officials wanted to secure the areas where the bats had settled.

The danger the animals posed to students was minimal, though, because the bats were gone by the time the students arrived, said Marc Hammond, co-owner of Animal Experts Wildlife Services, a private animal removal company that handled the incident.

The bats likely were migrating and took up residence at the school to stay warm, said Kathy Rucker, executive director of student health services and early childhood programs for the Tucson Unified School District.

"This is like Motel 6 and Denny's for them," she said.

Any areas where they could enter have been sealed now, Rucker said.

TUSD officials couldn't recall a school ever being evacuated for an entire day because of bats. It's not usual for bats to seek shelter in a building, but 40 is a large number.

Regular classes were canceled for the Magee students, and they watched the Arizona-Wisconsin basketball game on a projection screen in the Sahuaro auditorium. Some parents picked up their children, and it was expected that those remaining would be taken back to the school to be picked up later in the day.

District officials expected the school to be open Monday. The bats found Thursday tested negative for rabies. Results were not available Friday on the 40 new bats.