Classrooms are for students, not animals. This is the conclusion that Margaret Barthel, the head of the science department at Tampa, Florida's Freedom High School, has finally come to after an appearance in court this week resulted in Barthel's being punished for cruelty to the animals she kept in her classroom.

PETA was outside the courthouse in full force!

In Barthel's classroom at Freedom High, several class "pets" were abused and neglected: Nine gerbils died after they were deprived of food and water for more than two weeks, finches died of exposure, and a ball python froze to death. As a result of the cruelty citations, Barthel has relinquished her (still-living) ball python to Hillsborough County Animal Services, paid a $1,000 fine, donated $500 to animal services, and committed to keeping animals out of her classroom permanently.

We're hoping that in light of this incident, Freedom High School Principal Chris Farkas will heed our calls and prohibit the use of animals in all the school's classrooms. Please use this form to let him know that students can and do learn about responsibility, animal behavior, and hands-on science without keeping animals on display in classrooms.

Posted by Liz Graffeo

phayul / CC

You may have heard about the possible new "gay friendly" high school in Chicago. Harassment and violence are causing gay students to drop out at alarming rates—and the School for Social Justice Pride Campus would be a place for all students to be able to complete their education in a protected and welcoming environment.

I think this is wonderful news—but hey, we at PETA have always been against all forms of oppression. That's why our director of media relations, Michael McGraw, is writing Chad Weiden, the assistant principal of Social Justice High School (and likely principal of the new Pride Campus), with an important suggestion: Pride Campus should have an all-vegetarian cafeteria.

"It is only because of prejudice that animals killed for food on today's factory farms suffer miserable lives and nightmarish deaths," Michael writes—and it's true! Even though animals love, fear, mourn, and rejoice just like we do, their feelings are completely discounted. They are kept in cramped, filthy warehouses where they are beaten and abused, and at slaughter, their throats are cut or they are boiled alive—just because they don't happen to be exactly like us.

Michael's letter quotes Steven Simmons, a PETA staffer and gay rights activist who died of AIDS in the early '90s, who wrote, "It's time for us to end this hierarchy of who has the right to live, who deserves not to suffer, who should be respected, [the idea] that there's a limit to the amount of compassion that we can have for our fellow creatures." We're hoping that Assistant Principal Weiden will encourage his students to have compassion for today's most vulnerable population—the animals—by keeping Pride Campus meat-free.

You can read Michael's letter to Mr. Weiden here.

Posted by Amanda Schinke