animal shelters?

This is a dismal story but it has to be shared. A group of feral cats lived around the campus of the college which I attend and work for. Appearrently, the group set up home near the "daycare" and had been sneeking into the playgroundsupposedly using the sand for a liter box and all the other horrible things kitties do! One of the parents, upon seeing the cats so close to the children, freaked out and threatened that if the problem was not handled by the school, she would(meaning the evil lawsuits). Well, the school could not have this, understandably, and maintenance rounded what they could of the colony up and took them to the local animal shelter. This was fine, afterall what can a school do with cats? It was their fate from here that draws the question. Well, one of the staff of the school decided she would go adopt the cat she believed was the mom to a kitten she had rescued from the school(before parent complaint) but she couldn't until Monday. On Saturday, she called the shelter and asked if the cats were there, they said yes so she asked if she could donate food, they said yes. Well early Mon. morning, she arrived at the shelter to find none of the school cats remained. The same person she talked to 2 days before then told her that the cats were wild and had to be put to sleep. Huh?! I thought that's what shelters were for: wild animals that need homes. To begin with, the school maintenance never gave any of the people at the school a chance to adopt any of the cats(and I have learned of quite a few), and the shelter never gave anyone else a chance. There are tons of people around here that have the time, patience, heart, and money to care for feral cats, and lots of people that own farms and such that want good mousers. I understand that a job like that requires a degree of heart-hardening, but does that mean heart-less? I need some faith restoration in animal shelters because I lost the little bit I had after this.