Tarantula appreciation week at Madison Junior High

Tarantulas are terrifying to a lot of people, but not for a group of students at Madison Junior High.

Those students are actually raising the creepy critters, and they’re really into it.

“The students just love it,” Betty Wright, one of the tarantula teachers said. “We have all kinds of students who come, ‘When does the tarantula group start? Can I be part of the tarantula group?'”

One of the science teachers Julie Parkinson leads the group.

“It’s like a potato chip. You can’t just have one. And I thought she (Wright) was crazy to have so many,” Parkinson said. “So I started with one and now I have all kinds.”

Students work to raise their own tarantulas through the school year from babies to juveniles that they will take home for their own at the end of the school year. Tarantulas have been in the junior high for five years.