When Terry Day’s 6-year-old daughter brought home her spelling assignment that was supposed to include the word bigger but instead spelled n—er. Day immediately spoke with the Hamilton Elementary School first-grade teacher who made the typo but instead of offering an apology, the teacher responded, “Well it is a word.”
The Florida teacher whose name has yet to be released has sparked outrage among many parents who feel they are owed more than a written memo. The statement sent home with students read “Please be advised there was a misspelled word on the blue spelling list I sent home yesterday. Please throw the blue list away and refer to this list for the next six weeks. I apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. Please contact me if you have any concerns.”
Terry Day explained to WESH-TV that her 6-year-old pointed out the racial slur. “My daughter said to me, she said, ‘I know that word and I know what that word means, but is this supposed to be on my paper?’”
School officials said it was an “unintentional and unfortunate mistake” and issued a statement. “The teacher involved has taught at Hamilton Elementary for many years and is extremely remorseful about the situation”, spokesman Michael Lawrence said. “The school has already fixed and updated the spelling words list and redistributed to the students in that particular class.”
Day and other parents are more upset about the teacher not taking responsibility or acknowledging the racial slur that was exposed to the children. She believes they deserve an apology. “‘Inconvenience’ means sorry for the bother, so, I mean, it was not apologetic, it was not ‘sorry,’” Day expressed. “Even when I met with her in person, she wasn’t sorry, wasn’t apologetic, like, ‘Oh my God, I’m so sorry. I would have removed this.’ No! It wasn’t like that.”
