Following PETA Appeal, School District Sanctions Teacher for Callous Treatment of Student Who Chose Not to Dissect
For Immediate Release:
April 26, 2011
Contact:
Robbyn Brooks 202-483-7382
Naples, Fla. — The Collier County School District has officially sided with PETA and the family of a harassed student over the actions of North Naples Middle School teacher Mary Ellen Alexander, whom PETA called out for placing dead frogs on the desk of a student who had refused to participate in a dissection exercise. The district has removed Alexander from the school. The school district found that Alexander "acted insensitively and inappropriately" and exercised "poor professional judgment" in response to the student's legal right to refuse to dissect an animal. Alexander has been reassigned to shadow a teacher at another school and will remain there through at least the end of the 2012 school year. Furthermore, a disciplinary letter of warning has been placed in her district and state personnel files, and she will receive training on how to be more sensitive to students' needs.
"The Collier County School District has done the right thing by holding this teacher accountable for her cruel and unethical actions," says PETA Vice President Kathy Guillermo. "We hope that when Ms. Alexander returns to teaching her own biology classes, she will choose to use modern teaching methods that don't traumatize students or cost animals their lives."
The millions of animals who are used in school dissections suffer tremendously as they are transported, confined, and cruelly killed in order to be sold to schools for dissection. The Collier County School District has stated that it will evaluate whether it will completely replace animal dissection in its middle schools with modern and humane alternatives, which are endorsed by the National Science Teachers Association. To help facilitate this transition, PETA has offered to purchase interactive computer software for Collier County schools.
PETA points out that modern software is more effective at teaching biology, saves time and money, and helps create an inclusive learning involvement that does not risk alienating the many students opposed to harming animals.
For more information, please visit PETA.org/dissection.
