RFK Jr. came for a photo op. Cunningham families pushed back. - Austin American-Statesman

Make no mistake. The three dozen protesters gathered Friday morning outside Cunningham Elementary — waving snarky signs and shouting “shame! shame!” — were there because they love the school.

Sarah Espiritu, center, demonstrates Friday outside Cunningham Elementary School during a visit by U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. During the visit, Kennedy toured the school’s kitchen facilities and spoke about federal dietary guidelines and nutrition policy.

They love the PEAS Farm, an incredible community farm right there on campus, where the students grow lettuce, potatoes and other veggies while learning beginner’s botany and a connection to the natural world.

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They love Cunningham’s culinary kitchen — one of just seven sites in the country for the Emeril Lagasse Foundation’s Teaching Kitchen program — where kids gain cooking skills and nutritional knowledge for life.

The families just hated, hated, that their neighborhood school had become a backdrop for a photo op by U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a man whose efforts to undermine childhood vaccinations and stir misinformation about autism seemed far more dangerous to our health than the prevalence of processed foods.

“My 3rd grader knows more science than RFK Jr.” read one sign.

“Too bad there’s no vaccine for ignorance,” read another.

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“Unfit. Unqualified. Dangerous policies,” began the sign by protest organizer Karan Shirk, whose pre-K grandson is the third wave of her family members to attend Cunningham.

RELATED: RFK Jr. calls Austin ISD lunches a model as parents protest his 'dangerous' health policies

A contradiction weighed on Shirk and others along the sidewalk: They prize the programs, yet felt compelled to protest RFK Jr. visiting them. Cherishing Cunningham meant refusing to let it be co-opted.

“The opportunity to tell someone like that how we feel is not to be missed,” Shirk told me.

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I understood how she felt. My kids attended Cunningham roughly a decade ago, tending the peppers and tomatoes on sunny afternoons at PEAS Farm. We have such affection for the school that cultivated fresh vegetables and young minds. Hearing about the visit by RFK Jr. — a man who preaches health while feasting on roadkill, swimming in polluted waters and working in an administration that last year cut off 94 million pounds of aid to food banks — felt like a spoiling of a special space.

One mom’s sign simply said: “Eww.” No elaboration was necessary.

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. visits students Friday during lunch in the cafeteria at Cunningham Elementary School in South Austin.

So I could relate to the teachable moment facing Cunningham families. Inside, RFK Jr. got a campus tour and precious few pictures (only five families signed consent forms for their kids to be identifiably photographed with the controversial HHS chief). Outside, with cars honking in support of the shouting protesters, the civic pulse of the community beat strong.

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Judy Perry wore a handmade shirt that proclaimed, “Vaccines save lives.” She pulled up a photo on her phone to show me a picture of her grandson, a first-grader, wearing a handmade shirt with the same message, quickly cobbled together the previous night after families learned RFK Jr. would be visiting.

Maybe the health secretary would see it.

“We’re happy to have the attention to the nutritional program,” Perry said, “but if he’s interested in children’s health, he needs to take a more holistic approach and follow the data, follow the science.”

Other family members described the conversations they had with their kids: Explaining who RFK Jr. is and why they disagree with his views. Explaining how Cunningham’s programs can be so appealing, yet the official coming to admire them can be so problematic.

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Brenda Reed struggled with it. As a health supportive chef, she develops menus to help people with various illnesses get the nutrition they need. The “let’s eat better” part of RFK Jr.’s agenda has real merit. Her problem with him is… everything else.

Reed said her fourth-grade son hoped he would have a chance to ask RFK Jr. about vaccinations. She was proud he was ready to challenge an opposing view.

“It’s a great opportunity to be in the room with someone you may not agree with,” she told me. “Hopefully it’s what democracy is built on.”

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And even with the disruptions of the day — the security detail sweeping the hallways, the shouting of protesters as RFK Jr. entered and exited the building — the elementary crowd got a real lesson Friday in the political tensions of our time. How you can love a community, a country, and also decry what’s happening to it. How pride for a place can spark protest. How that protest provides an antidote to apathy and affirmation that you are not alone.

None of RFK Jr.’s policies changed Friday. But a South Austin community felt a little stronger, a little healthier.

Outside the school, a protester with a “Protect our health” sign slipped off his Grim Reaper cloak, climbed in his truck and drove home.

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Inside, a first-grader in a handmade “Vaccines save lives” T-shirt moved on to the next lesson.

Reach Editorial Page Editor Bridget Grumet at [email protected].

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