Sheriff’s investigators have been inundated by calls and emails from worried parents reporting suspicions involving Edgar Covarrubias-Padilla, a science camp monitor who was charged this week with molestation and possession of child pornography.

As of Wednesday afternoon, deputies had received 100 calls and 50 emails, said Sgt. James Jensen of the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office. Seven detectives, plus some patrol officers, are working on the investigation, he said.

Covarrubias-Padilla was arrested May 7 at the Cupertino campus of Walden West, a science camp run by the Santa Clara County Office of Education. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security had alerted the Sheriff’s Office about suspicions that he was file-sharing child pornography. After the arrest was announced, several parents and staffers contacted deputies. The molestation charge was added at Covarrubias-Padilla’s arraignment on Monday.

Parents’ worries have been amplified by sparse, and sometimes incorrect, information released by the Office of Education and repeated by local schools and districts. County Superintendent of Schools Jon Gundry issued another letter Monday, which many districts forwarded to parents Tuesday, correcting a previous statement that Covarrubias-Padilla’s job involved no contact with children.

The Sheriff’s Office is sorting through the messages and prioritizing them, Jensen said. “There is a certain motive the detectives believe he had, and based on that motive they are triaging the messages,” he said. He declined to state what the motive was.

Some parents who contacted the Sheriff’s Office and waited days for a response have become frantic.

One San Jose parent, who did not want to be named because his daughter is a potential victim, left multiple messages and finally heard Tuesday that his report had been registered. His daughter visited Walden West in January with her Evergreen School District school. On a night when she was restless, her teacher walked her to “the Hub,” as the camp’s office is called, where she stayed the night with Covarrubias-Padilla present.

Evergreen spokesman Charles Crosby confirmed that account. “I understand it is common for kids having trouble sleeping etc. to go to the Hub,” he wrote in an email. The teacher stayed for a while with the fifth-grader in the Hub, then returned to her own bed, Crosby wrote.

Parents with suspicions can contact the Sheriff’s Office at 408-808-4300 or email safetaskforce@sheriff.sccgov.org.

Contact Sharon Noguchi at 408-271-3775. Follow her at Twitter.com/noguchionk12.