Mother Outraged After Her 5th Grade Son Is Made To Take Part In Mock Slave Auction At School ''People Were Bidding On People''

Administrators at Gahanna's Chapelfield Elementary School apologized yesterday to the mother of a black fifth-grader who was forced to play the part of a slave in a classroom exercise.

A spokeswoman for Gahanna-Jefferson Public Schools said the lesson was intended to teach students about history and cultural diversity.

Wednesday's incident came to light in an e-mail to WBNS-TV.

"As soon as the concern was brought to our attention, school officials acted promptly to speak with the parent," district spokeswoman Mary Otting said yesterday in a statement.

"The Gahanna-Jefferson Public Schools values diversity and its families."

District officials declined to discuss the incident in detail, but a reporter was at the student's home when his mother, Aneka Burton, received a phone call from Chapelfield Principal Scott Schmidt.

"I apologize for that," Schmidt told Burton. "I will definitely make sure it doesn't happen again. It was never our intent to cause harm."

The district didn't name the teacher in the statement released yesterday.

Burton said her son, Nikko, 10, "felt degraded" by the exercise.

She said Nikko told her after school on Wednesday that a teacher had divided students into two groups: "masters" and "slaves."

Burton's son said in an interview that the students' roles were determined by random drawing.

He said the only other black child in the class, a girl, ended up in the masters group.

The boy said the students in the slaves group were offered for sale in a simulated auction

"At first, I didn't care," he said. "But after people were bidding on people, it kind of made me a little mad and stuff."

He said he became even angrier when students playing prospective buyers were told to feel the muscles of the students playing slaves.

"They took the bigger ones first," Burton said, recounting what her son told her.

"They looked in their mouth to see who had stronger teeth. And whoever was the strongest that's who they sold first."

Burton said that when her son balked at being "sold," the teacher told him to return to his desk.

"He was hurt, and the kids picked on him later."

Burton said that although she appreciates Schmidt's apology, she thinks school officials need a better understanding of the lesson they apparently were trying to convey.

"They should research - they should be educated about black history," she said. "That was inappropriate."

Yesterday, after school, her son said he hadn't gotten an apology from the teacher, and the district didn't respond to an inquiry about possible disciplinary action.

"It was kind of mean," he said, "and she should have said, 'Sorry.'

Source: ThisIs50