A social studies lesson on Frederick Douglass prompted a Beaver Ridge Elementary School teacher to use slavery beatings to teach math concepts on a homework assignment, Gwinnett Schools officials say.
Whatever the reason, the assignment outraged some parents at the Norcross school. the school on Monday continued to receive complaints about a math assignment distributed to more than 100 students in four of the school's third-grade classes last week, the Atlantic Journal-Constitution reported.
The assignment made references to slaves picking oranges and filling baskets with cotton. It also included the question, "If Frederick got two beatings per day, how many beatings did he get in one week?"
Parent Christopher Braxton, who discovered the questions while helping his son with his math homework, said he will meet with Principal Jose DeJesus on Tuesday to voice his concerns. On Monday, DeJesus told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that he couldn't comment on the incident.
"The questions were outrageous and offensive," Braxton said. "We don't want to see any more kids asked these types of questions."
This is the second time in two years race and ethnicity on a homework assignment sparked complaints at Gwinnett Schools. There was a similar incident in Cobb Schools last fall.
Last school year, third-graders at Gwinnett's Chesney Elementary were given a reading homework packet that included a story titled, "What is an Illegal Alien?" The assignment, which was copied from the Internet by a new teacher, was not reviewed by the school's subject area department chair before it was distributed. The math sheet created at Beaver Ridge also failed to undergo a content review, officials said. Under district policy, the worksheet should have been reviewed before being handed out to students, but that process was not followed.
In September, Cobb Schools came under fire for a similar incident, an assignment by a teacher at Campbell Middle School. Students were asked to write on the issue of dress codes and read a fictional two-page letter written by a 20-year-old Saudi Arabian woman. The character wrote approvingly of wearing the Islamic veil ― and of her fiance's multiple wives and the law of Sharia.
Gwinnett Schools human resources officials are investigating the Beaver Ridge incident to decide whether punitive action is necessary. District officials said they would work with math teachers to come up with more appropriate questions.
"These particular questions were an attempt at incorporating some of what students had been discussing in social studies with their math activity," said Sloan Roach, Gwinnett Schools spokeswoman. "One teacher developed the questions, another made the copies and it was used in four classes."