Brynnan Grimes, an 11th-grade-student, sketches and writes stories about cats in her spare time, which happen to be her favorite creatures.
“She’s a siamese with spotted points,” said Grimes.
Grimes has a very strong affection for cats to put it lightly, and the family has five cats including Grimmes personal cat whose name is Sparta.
“I never want children, so these cats are my children,” said Grimes.
Grimes is growing closer to her companion animals because the 16-year-old is now being home-schooled after coming home one day from school with a message to her mother.
“She came home and she said ‘mom we’re supposed to dissect cats in anatomy class’ and I was just blown away,” said Tamira Thayne the mother of Brynnan.
Grimes says she couldn’t believe what her teacher told her before the dissection.
“She said if you have a black cat just pick a white cat to dissect, I was like that doesn’t change anything, they’re still a cat,” said Grimes.
This was the statement issued by Rob Hauman, the executive director of curriculum & instruction for Culpeper County Public Schools told NBC29 that:
“Our Honors Human Anatomy and Physiology course does involve animal dissection, including the dissection of cats purchased from a scientific materials vendor. This part of the lab experience has been taking place for many years and, to our knowledge, without complaint from students or parents. Our Veterinary Science course has also used cats in the past. The course in question is an elective course. The teacher’s opening letter/course syllabus explains that dissections will take place and that, per VDOE guidelines, alternatives for students who do not wish to participate, shall be provided. This is an elective class that students take by choice and, if they choose not to participate any dissection, we provide an alternative as required by the guidelines.”
The school system says it follows these state particular guidelines for alternatives to animal dissection. The guidelines require the school notify students of alternatives and provide specific activities or resources as an alternative to cutting up cats.
“Even if they technically give them a choice, I believe the student still has to take a stand against the other students be seen as odd, be seen as a coward, you know the one that doesn’t want to do it, said Thayne.
Thayne now wants her outrage channeled into action and she has posted a petition at change.org
“This really engenders a lack of respect for companion animals, and that’s the complete opposite of what we should be telling our students,” Thayne added.
In further investigations, it was discovered that there are several other school systems in central Virginia which are also dissecting cats as well as other animals.
Grimes is glad that there are other animal-lovers joining her in the cause to view Tamira Thayne’s petition please follow this link: