Bacon: Whitney Young Welcomes Yet Another Non-Human Student

Image+Courtesy+of+National+Geographic.+2023.+

Image Courtesy of National Geographic. 2023.

Cai Flake, Staff Writer

Whitney Young, like the generous and welcoming school it is, has opened its doors to a new student: literally. The bird, named Peck, flew in late February and has begun attending the school, marking another historical achievement for Whitney Young: now the first CPS school to enroll a non-human student. 

When other schools were asked to incorporate non-humans into their student population, other schools like Payton and Jones denied them access, saying it was “unnatural for animals to live among true people.” Young was willing to take on this challenge and, instead of shooing them out, welcomed Peck with open arms. Unfortunately, this achievement is tarnished by Peck’s irresponsible and unscholarly behavior.

In the weeks since their enrollment, teachers have reported Peck absent in nearly every class and they currently hold straight Ds in every class. According to student reports, Peck has never even been spotted inside a classroom, opting to instead stroll around the houses and loiter around other lunch tables. To get down to the root cause of their reckless behavior, we asked it ourselves. We received nothing but meaningless squeaks: guess they’re not much of a speaker.

When students were asked about how they felt about their new classmate, most expressed contempt toward Peck. One student tells us, “That thing needs to get out of here. Is this place a forest now?” Others refused to acknowledge their existence at all. When we asked the administration about their choice in accepting this student, they replied “We want to expand our boundaries and spread the Whitney Young agenda to other species. We want to be ahead of the curve.” 

Cross-species education is not new to Young’s students and staff. In the past few months, the school had joined an exchange program with the rats. Since then, a few students from both sides were lost and the school has been facing the repercussions ever since. Unlike those unspeakable creatures, the birds pose no physical threat to our campus, which eliminates the possibility of another incident. Despite Peck’s reckless behavior, a student is a student, and we should allow them to continue their education among us. Non-human discrimination does nothing but hinders Whitney’s potential to become the first school to include all species.