A jar found in a Florida high school classroom with what appears to be a fetus belonged to a former teacher, officials said.



Lee County School District spokeswoman Amity Chandler said the former teacher told the principal of Cape Coral High School on Tuesday morning that the jar was in the classroom for more than a decade.



The teacher — who taught at the school from 1980 until 2010 — said it was given to her by a retiring teacher. According to NBC 2, officials said the fetus was used as a teaching tool.



"A former child development teacher no longer at the school advised the product in question was used by her for over a decade as a teaching tool," Chandler said in a statement. "It was given to her by a retiring science teacher who had used it in the classroom for an unknown number of years."



An e-mail left by The Associated Press with the medical examiner's office was not immediately returned.



Sheriff's Office spokesman Larry King says it's investigating.



The jar was found on Aug. 7th by a by a school resource officer. Chandler said students "knew instantly that it had been a part of the classroom."



Parents of students at the school had mixed reactions when hearing the news.



"While it feels extreme and graphic, its reality," Gwen Garfall, a mother of a senior at Cape Coral High, told NBC 2.



"In biology, frogs are enough; maybe, a mammal of some sort [is okay] but not a baby," said Linda Harris, grandmother of a Cape Coral High student.

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