A Long Island school teacher has apologized for a “poorly conceived and executed” class lesson district leaders say trivialized the plight of formerly enslaved Black Americans.
Freeport Schools Superintendent Dr. Kishore Kuncham addressed the controversy at a school board meeting Tuesday, in which she read an apology from the embattled educator.
Freeport school officials said the teacher has been removed from the classroom pending an investigation. (Photo by Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
“It’s with the deepest sense of respect that I apologize to students, families and the larger Freeport community for my insensitive words [and] actions last week,” the plea began. “As a teacher and fellow member of this school community, it’s my responsibility to exercise the highest degree of care and thought in all of my student and staff interactions.”
“I failed to do so last week,” it continued, “and I fully accept that I must work hard to rebuild trust from my students, colleagues and community.”
The teacher, a social studies instructor at J.W. Dodd Middle School, faced backlash after reports that she’d instructed students to “write something funny” under pictures of post-Civil War sharecroppers. According to the district, the teacher assigned the lesson to three separate classes and told students to make the captions comical, so as not to “bore” her.
The assignment sparked outrage across the Freeport school community after resident Darlene McCurty, whose granddaughter attends J.W. Dodd, shared screenshots of the captions, which read,”#Gettin That Money,” and “Black Girls work hard, play hard,” online. It wasn’t long before the school was flooded with angry phone calls from parents demanding action about the assignment, especially as the social media post said the photos depicted enslaved African-Americans, not those of the Reconstruction era.
The district said it launched a review of the matter and removed the teacher, who McCurty said is white, from the classroom pending an investigation.
“Aside from the fact that this was a poor lesson, it’s an insensitive trivialization of a deeply painful era for African-Americans in this country, and it’s unacceptable,” Kuncham said in a statement.
Data from the New York State Education Department shows that Dodd Middle School boasted a student population that was was 66 percent Latino and 25 percent African-American, NBC News noted.
District leaders say they’re now “finalizing an agreement with the teacher and her union representatives.”
Watch more in the video below.
