San Diego

A state appellate court refused Tuesday to bar students in the San Diego Unified School District from conducting science projects involving live animals, rejecting an animal rights group’s request for a permanent ban on such experiments.

The 4th District Court of Appeal ruled that the school district’s policies governing animal experiments meet state legal standards. The policies prohibit experiments leading to the death of vertebrate animals.

The Animal Rights Coalition had sought a permanent prohibition against live-animal experiments involving the injury or death of animals or surgery. The group also sought an order requiring the school district to issue a written guide on animal experiment rules to administrators, teachers and students.

Though the coalition cited a series of past school science fair experiments involving injury or danger to animals, the court ruled that the group had provided no evidence that the school district intended to allow such experiments in the future.