Schools told to clean up after classroom animals

Students will still be able to watch chickens hatch and hamsters nibble, but the Mat-Su Borough School Board is warning schools to clean up their acts.

The school district's central administration recently recommended limiting animals in the classroom after observing animals running loose in schools and learning that in some cases custodians had to wear masks and gloves in order to clean up neglected messes.

While school board members acknowledged the health concerns, several said the changes were too sweeping. At last week's meeting, they rejected the administration's recommendation but asked to hear a more detailed report next month.

Rather than limiting the presence of animals, board member Linda Menard suggested sending a memo to principals advising them to keep conditions safe and sanitary.

"It seems like we should just be able to clean house," she said. "It's such an enriching experience to have these critters in there."

However, district risk manager Jack Sherman said such memos had been sent to schools but the situations had not improved. He added that the problem was not isolated to one or two buildings -- animals were running loose in a third of the district's elementary schools and in half, there was the potential for airborne bird diseases.

While there have been no cases of Mat-Su students being infected by salmonella, psittacosis or other diseases carried by animals, Sherman said that in talking with health officials he felt the potential existed for students to become sick from the animals, especially at schools where children eat their lunches in classrooms where birds are kept.

The district's new policy would have banned wild animals, ducklings, baby chicks, turtles, parakeets, parrots, pigeons and other birds. It also would have limited classrooms to having two caged animals at one time, and all animals would have to be tied to a specific curricular need and time period.

"It's not that they can't be brought in for show-and-tell," Sherman said. "They just can't live in the classroom."

However, board member Mike Chmielewski said it appeared that the district's recommendation would too strictly tighten a long-standing tradition of using animals as part of the classroom experience.

Mat-Su teacher Gordon Pepperd defended this tradition. He told the board he was disturbed to learn he would have to get rid of the dove he keeps in his classroom.

"It's not just there for myself but for the students," Pepperd said, adding that sometimes animals are in the classroom purely for the joy of having them rather than for any specific educational reasons.

Goose Bay kindergarten teacher Laura Fortunoff also was not pleased with the suggested policy change.

"I still want to hatch chickens in my kindergarten class . . . please," she told the board.

Board members seemed particularly offended by the attack on chickens in the classroom.

"I have chickens, too. I like to watch them hatch," Chmielewski said.

"I don't like to see this discrimination against chickens," board newcomer and local farmer Larry DeVilbiss said later in the meeting.

As board president Dan Contini prepared to vote against the district's policy change, he said, "I don't like the whole darned thing."

Also at Wednesday's meeting, Mat-Su Superintendent Pat Chesbro swore into office new board member DeVilbiss as well as Menard and Contini, who were re-elected to their seats. The board then elected its officers -- Contini is president, Carl Gatto vice president and Menard clerk.