A teacher has resigned from a North Carolina charter school after telling Black students in her class that they would have been her slaves if not for the Constitution, according to a parent who described additional racist comments from other students and the teacher, reports NBC News.
Annastasia Ryan, the principal of Winterville Charter Academy, sent a memo to parents of eighth-graders on Sept. 24 acknowledging that there had been a “racially insensitive lesson” about the Constitution at the school and that the teacher responsible for it had resigned following an investigation, local television station WITN reported.
According to the station, the memo said that “culturally sensitive training for the teacher that resigned” would be provided, in addition to training for the school’s current and future staff.
The teacher, whom the school hasn’t identified by name, “had them raise their hand during a constitutional lesson and reminded them that if it wasn’t for the Constitution, they would be her slaves. Her field slaves,” said Kanisha Tillman, whose child was in the classroom, according to WITN.
She also described a separate incident her son relayed to her after another parent had texted to tell her about racism at the school.
“A White student had called a Black student a monkey,” Tillman toldciated Press. “When the Black student educated him on that being racist and him not liking it and not to call him that and asked the teacher for support, the teacher turned around and said to him, ‘Oh, it’s OK. We’re all a little bit racist.’”
