Newsday (NY)
PETA's action creates havoc at Hempstead school
Joye Brown
March 17, 2009
http://www.newsday.com:80/news/printedition/longisland/ny-lijoy176072312mar17,0,7258565.column
The first call came shortly after 11 a.m. one day last week.
Protesters were on their way to the Fulton Elementary School in
Hempstead.
That call, and a second one a short time later, came from reporters
who had received news releases from the animal rights advocacy group
PETA - People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. The news sent the
school district scrambling to the Internet for information.
And later, after seeing the news release, they found out more.
"There was my school's name, my school's address and my school's exact
dismissal time," Regina Armstrong-Robinson, the school's principal,
said yesterday, "and I'm asking myself who are these people and why
are they coming here?"
PETA's intention was to let children know that circuses are cruel to
animals. No doubt, the protest was timed to coincide with the coming
of the Ringling Bros. Circus, which is slated to open this week at
Nassau Coliseum in the neighboring community of Uniondale.
The district had little choice but to move fast.
"We didn't know who was coming, how many of them were coming and we
didn't know whether the protest would be vocal or not,"
Armstrong-Robinson said.
Administrators locked down the school, which houses students in first
through fifth grades. And the district sent over four extra security
guards to supplement the two who were in the building.
Overkill? Hardly.
Students in the neighborhood school range in age from 6 through 11.
And, in October, state troopers had presented a safety program for the
children, most of whom walk home after school.
The message: Stay away, and take nothing from strangers.
"They [troopers] had a character in costume handing out safety
materials to the children," Armstrong-Robinson said. "And now another
costumed character, that nobody was expecting, is supposed to be
handing out materials to young children, and nobody knows who it is or
what the material is?"
The school locked the gates, and asked parents picking up children to
move to another location. Security personnel watched special needs and
other children as they boarded buses. And watched others as they
walked off toward their homes.
Some parents and children stopped to take buttons or an activity book
protesters handed out, which, on one page, asks kids to color an
elephant wearing "circus chains."
"The material is disturbing and inappropriate for small children, who
are visual learners," said Rodney Gilmore, the district's interim
assistant superintendent. "Kids love the idea of a circus. This would
be upsetting to them."
Which, I'm guessing, is exactly the point. But there was another,
better way for PETA to make its point. A spokesman said the group
often takes its messages to schools. Why? Wouldn't it be better to go
to the parents, who make the plans and actually buy the tickets?
After word of the PETA protest spread, Ringling Bros. offered to come
in and talk to children about circus animals, too.
"If PETA or the circus or anyone else wants to come in, there's a way
to do it and a way not to do it," said Armstrong-Robinson, adding that
for days she had to field telephone calls from parents asking about
the protest.
"We send requests from groups through the PTA," she said. "If we were
going to do it on any issue, I like to hear both sides of an issue and
have both sides make their presentations to adults, to the PTA, the
school board, not young children."
The children at Fulton are still going to the circus.
Next week, they'll be off to the UniverSoul Circus in New York City.
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