Someone apparently stole a flock of urban chickens living on the campus of Isaac Dickson Elementary School in Asheville, according to a school parent who has worked closely with the school and its birds.
Teacher Patti Evans went to check on the chickens early Saturday and discovered coops on the school grounds empty, says Kate Fisher, who has two children at the school on Hill Street. Eight chickens in all, including unofficial school mascots Lily and Winter and two three-month-old chicks that school children watched hatch, were gone. Fisher says the school filed a police report.
"I want people to be on the look-out" for chicken thieves, says Fisher. "If they took ours, the could take anybody's."
Chickens living inside Asheville city limits have been in the spotlight recently after a group of residents (Asheville City Chickens) banded together earlier this year to lobby Asheville City Council to ease site restrictions on backyard coops. Several residents came before Council to express the benefits of raising chickens, and City Council loosened rules regarding them.
Isaac Dickson Elementary School is an Asheville City Schools magnet school that focuses on experiential learning. The school has been home to chickens for about three years, according to Fisher. Their coops are built adjacent to a school garden that was also vandalized — plants were found pulled and strewn about at the time the chickens went missing, Fisher says.
School children, parents and school faculty and staff took an active role in raising and caring for the birds, which were also incorporated into the school's curriculum. For example, a few of the chickens were used as live models for a student art project.
"These chickens belonged to the kids. Three hundreds kids, and their parents and the community were connected to the chickens. It's a part of who we are as a school," Fisher says. "We really loved them."
Despite the loss, Fisher says she's determined to move ahead.
"We'll start over and it will be fine."
— Jason Sandford, multimedia editor
Teacher Patti Evans went to check on the chickens early Saturday and discovered coops on the school grounds empty, says Kate Fisher, who has two children at the school on Hill Street. Eight chickens in all, including unofficial school mascots Lily and Winter and two three-month-old chicks that school children watched hatch, were gone. Fisher says the school filed a police report.
"I want people to be on the look-out" for chicken thieves, says Fisher. "If they took ours, the could take anybody's."
Chickens living inside Asheville city limits have been in the spotlight recently after a group of residents (Asheville City Chickens) banded together earlier this year to lobby Asheville City Council to ease site restrictions on backyard coops. Several residents came before Council to express the benefits of raising chickens, and City Council loosened rules regarding them.
Isaac Dickson Elementary School is an Asheville City Schools magnet school that focuses on experiential learning. The school has been home to chickens for about three years, according to Fisher. Their coops are built adjacent to a school garden that was also vandalized — plants were found pulled and strewn about at the time the chickens went missing, Fisher says.
School children, parents and school faculty and staff took an active role in raising and caring for the birds, which were also incorporated into the school's curriculum. For example, a few of the chickens were used as live models for a student art project.
"These chickens belonged to the kids. Three hundreds kids, and their parents and the community were connected to the chickens. It's a part of who we are as a school," Fisher says. "We really loved them."
Despite the loss, Fisher says she's determined to move ahead.
"We'll start over and it will be fine."
— Jason Sandford, multimedia editor
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Maybe it was Obama er I mean George Bush.
By travelah
07/13/2009
“I want people to be on the look-out†for chicken thieves, says Fisher. “If they took ours, the could take anybody’s.â€
How does one recognize a chicken thief?
Wild Wings T shirt?
By PatD
07/14/2009
Col Sanders type beard
By nuvue
07/14/2009
dang bird-burglers
By Cletus
07/14/2009
My daughter is going to be heartbroken
By missemmalee
07/14/2009
What Fisher is saying, I believe, is that there are many urban chicken coops around town. If you have one of them, you may want to keep an eye out to avoid losing yer birds. On another note, the chicken "humor" is inevitable 'cause chickens are funny, IMO. However, these kids and quite a few grownups were truly sad. They have worked really hard on this whole garden, building coops and such. It is a harsh taste of reality for them and a violation of what should be a safe place, free from thieves and nastiness. (BTW, Kate Fisher is my wife)
By James Fisher
07/14/2009
My girl cried on and off all evening about this. Good work, thieves, emotionally damaging elementary school-aged kids.
As I said in another comment thread, I sincerely hope that none of the folks who disagree with chickens being used for educational purposes would cross the line into criminal activity. If they don’t like chickens in pens, I wonder how they’ll feel about being penned up themselves.
By Edgy Mama
07/15/2009
it was the chicken-lover...
he drives the book-mobile...cant miss him
By Piffy!
07/15/2009
I guess I shouldn't be too surprised that travelah used this as an excuse to attack Obama. They are predicting rain tomorrow.... It certainly must be Obama's fault! If only he hadn't been secretly born in Kenya and raised by Marxist terrorists to take over the world, starting with the theft a of an elementary school's chickens.
By entopticon
07/16/2009