NORTHWEST GLENDALE -- Students walking to school or being dropped off by their parents along Glenwood Road on Tuesday morning were greeted by an anonymous group of pro-life demonstrators carrying large posters depicting bloody, aborted fetuses.

The sight of 10 pro-life demonstrators standing on the street that borders Keppel Elementary, Toll Middle and Hoover High schools -- and the 10-by-4-foot posters of aborted babies they held up high -- were cause for anger and concern by parents, students and school administrators.

One side of the poster the protesters held had a picture of a healthy baby. The other side depicted a mangled, deformed fetus with a medical utensil around its neck, Toll Principal Jan Homan said.

"It was highly age-inappropriate, quite offensive and graphic," Homan said. "They were disgusting. Among many of my students who came in this morning, that was the buzz. It is not the way I want to start school. It was distracting and disturbing."

The demonstration was by Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust, a Lake Arrowhead-based group with about 200 members. What the group did today was what it calls a "campus life tour," part of the group's goal of reaching 200 school campuses this year. With today's visit to Glendale, the group reached the 100-visit mark, said spokesman Dan McCullough, 30.

The group also visited Glendale Community College and Glendale High School, talking to students and handing out brochures. The brochures gave personal testimony from women who opted not to have abortions.

The group's members describe themselves as Christians, though they are not affiliated with any specific church.

Young people are the group's specific target, McCullough said, although Survivors was not seeking out middle school and grade-school age children.

However, "The younger generation needs to know the truth about abortion," he said. "That it is the murder of an innocent child. We want minors to be as informed as possible. "

Keppel parent Emily Young described the posters as horrific and graphic, and was upset she and her son had to see the photos on their way to school.

"What on Earth were they thinking?" Young said. "This is terrible. What if they had been showing pornographic photos? This is almost as bad. I am extremely upset."

Hoover administrators did not ask the demonstrators to leave because they were standing on the sidewalk, which is not school property, Assistant Principal Sarah O'Reilly said.

"It's a freedom they do have," O'Reilly said. "We did not ask them to leave, but I did not want that kind of exposure to our elementary students across the street."

It was impossible not to see the posters when students showed up for school Tuesday, said Angel Huerta, 16, a Hoover student who described herself as pro-life.

Angel thought the posters were completely inappropriate.

"Those pictures showed too much, and that is wrong," she said. "It's a good idea to make people aware, but those pictures were disgusting and showed bloody babies.

"I have never seen those people here before."

A similar incident occurred last week near Crescenta Valley High School and La Crescenta Elementary School, district spokesman Vic Pallos said. A few individuals allegedly drove around the perimeter of the schools in trucks with similar posters hanging from the sides of the trucks.

Principals were informed of the incident at a districtwide principals' meeting last week, Pallos said.

"We do not support this kind of graphic activity," Pallos said. "As long as these demonstrations are on the sidewalk or public property and don't interfere with the operation of school or class instruction, they have a right to do that. But I can definitely understand a parent at any level saying they are upset."

McCullough said his group was not involved in the La Crescenta Elementary incident.