Teacher on leave after allegedly using Black student in slavery lesson

The northwest Houston history teacher allegedly told the eighth grader the confederate flag was “good” and had nothing to do with slavery days before using her as an example of a slave auction, capture and sale.

An investigation into a middle school teacher’s alleged choice to use the sole Black student in her class as representation during a slavery lesson has resulted in officials placing her on administrative leave.

Tori Ards, the mother of the eighth grader at Kahla Middle School in northwest Houston, joined local civil rights activists including Quanell X at a news conference outside the Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District campus on Wednesday, according to Houston Public Media. They demanded the female history teacher be fired and banned from teaching.

Quanell X asserted that the unnamed teacher referred to the confederate flag as a “good flag” last Thursday and said it had nothing to do with slavery. 

Then, on Monday, the instructor “went on to further intimidate this young woman by using the analogy with [Ards’] daughter about a slave auction,” Quanell X said, alleging that the teacher used the student to illustrate how one could be captured, taken to the South and sold.

Ards stated that the experience had been humiliating for her daughter, who also is an athlete at the school, takes gifted and talented courses and has never had any behavioral issues. “Not to say any student who doesn’t have those accolades and abilities deserves to be ostracized,” she added, ABC13 News reported.

Still, the outraged mother described the circumstance as “very emotionally charged,” maintaining that the instructor was “essentially bullying” her child, who has been “tremendously” impacted by the situation in terms of a detrimental effect on her mental health and on her desire to go back to school.

According to a letter to parents from Kahla’s principal, Joshua Carroll, which was made available by the school district, officials are aware of the “improper role-playing during a social studies lesson,” Houston Public Media reported.

Carroll assured that the school remains committed to providing a supportive environment for all students, and said the teacher in question will only return once the administration conducts a thorough investigation.

“We have teachers, who are racists and bigots in the classrooms, in charge of the responsibility of shaping and developing young minds,” Quanell X noted, ABC13 reported. He said such teachers, “want to rewrite history to desensitize slavery, human bondage, lynching and deprivation of Black people in America and here in the south.”

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