Ducklings expelled from Kennedy High

No feathers were ruffled during a rescue mission at Kennedy High School on Friday afternoon.

School resource officers escorted a dozen ducklings and their mother out of the school around 1 p.m., as students and teachers watched from crowded classroom doorways.

The ducklings - too young to fly - were discovered by a teacher in the school's enclosed courtyard that morning. School officials waited until students were in class to show the ducks the door.

'We didn't want to do it while students were in the hallways,” Principal Jason Kline said. 'We didn't want to stress the ducks out.”

Kline said the mother duck probably flew into the courtyard, where she built a nest in some greenery.

Considering the lack of water in the courtyard, their living arrangement wasn't going to fly.

Officials considered corralling the ducklings into a box and taking them outside, but decided that might be too traumatic.

'None of us are expert duck wranglers,” Kline said.

So they winged it. With Kline filming close behind, the officers goaded the mother duck into the school, then encouraged her ducklings to follow her inside. As the video shows, the ducklings hurried after her, quacking and slipping on the tile floor.

'We knew if we got Mama to go, they would all follow,” Kline said. 'And they did.”

After securing their freedom, the ducklings and their mother stopped at a pond in front of the high school before waddling away.