It is with great sadness that I am announcing the end of the Tarantulas In The Classroom program at Mr. John's Tarantulas .com. Over the last few years I have kept the program running under the constant nitpicking scrutiny from both state licensing agencies and school administrators alike. I have received little to no funding and if it wasn't for the ATS I would have folded a year ago. I myself will remain involved in the hobby and I will continue to operate the Mr. John's Tarantulas web page as a private entity, no longer under the wing of a parent program, and I will continue to maintain the ATS funded web-cam project from the spider room at my home. I will also continue to do free educational shows upon request.

Mr John I hate to hear this.

Maybe I'm naive. I thought the educated part of the world was finally learning that tarantulas aren't the enemy.

Best of luck to you.

That is so sad. I think it is a tragedy that schools are becoming so sterile that it is becoming harder and harder to find one
that will even entertain the thought of exposing kids to animals.

Very sorry to hear this. Having worked for government, I can just imagine the hassle.
Glad the web cam will stay up. Thinking that at least that can be viewed by students.

That's really the worst news I have heard in a while. I am so sorry.

Dawn is hitting the nail on the head calling schools sterile. Because that's really what this comes down to.
What happened to letting kids get dirty and have fun with nature?

I could just go on a rant, but I'll refrain myself and be thankful for the time you were able to get your classroom involved in this project. Better a seedling planted than never a chance at all.

Is it a safety issue? Our hobby is quite wide, and while they're "gross" cockroaches are much "safer". Maybe you could change your direction in the classroom?

Any hit to education is maddening, and it really does make me ill to hear this. I hope you can still try to attend the conference!

It was a combination of many things. I still have our adult female G. rosea in the classroom. She was the original tarantula that our licenser approved. She is the mascot for my next program. Mr. John's Explorers. We will be getting in some field time with a pretty good assortment of science gear that I have been scavenging together. We have a large state park that we decided to spend our summer identifying ans documenting the flora and fauna for ProjectNoah.org I'm working on the layout for the kids to start building our new web page. When it's up I'll post a link.

Glad to hear you're just switching directions and not coming to a complete stop. Good luck and thanks for looking out for the kids. I'm sure many of them that have passed through your classroom will never forget the things they've learned from you.

I'm really sorry to hear about this, MrJohn. I'm glad you get to keep one tarantula in the classroom at least, hopefully she'll live a long time and serve as a great ambassador for her kind with future kids in your program.

For lack of a better word, Mr. John, I am so "proud" of what you are doing for the hobby. We still actively do spider and herp presentations in classrooms and we know what a difference a live animal can make to a child in a classroom. Thank you for your efforts.