No pets in classrooms

Most people had a classroom at some point in their schooling that had an animal in it. It may have been a hamster or gerbil, maybe even a spider or a snake. As a kid seeing animals at school was pretty cool. I have had two gerbils in my classrooms over the years and let them roll around in their ball on the floor during the day, not the entire day, and the kids loved it. If the gerbils got stuck, the kids just moved the ball so it was free and they went back to work. The kids got to feed it and hold it, for many kids it was the only pet they had ever "had". Despite the benefits of having animals in classrooms, many principals don't like them, some because they don't like animals muchin the first place, others because they feel school is a place where only education occurs and if you can't show in writing how the animalis helping educate children, it has to go.

That is the attitude that one principal in Denver has taken to her teachers having pets in their classrooms.

Principal Patty Geffre of Montbello High School in far northeast Denver has told her teachers to get rid fo the animals they have been keeping their classrooms as pets. Geffre has a simple message for her teachers;" We are here to educate children, not to house animals." "If you are doing an educational experience that's going to enhance student learning, they can be there . . . but we're not their home."

She is concerned about students with allergies, the liability of an injury caused by an animal at school and the comfort level of a teacher forced to share a room with another teacher's animals.
"If you have a reason for them that enhances our curriculum, I'll talk about it," she said, noting she's already approved an embryology project where students will watch fish grow in a tank.

No wonder kids look at school as a job, we're determined to take away all the things that made school a place kids wanted to be.

Hooray...