A North Texas elementary school teacher is in hot water after it was discovered her sixth grade class’ nickname was a racial slur. The teacher, whose identity has not been made public at the time of this writing, is employed by the Hurst-Euless-Bedford Independent School District, teaching sixth graders at Bell Manor Elementary School.
The teacher’s decision to nickname her class the “jighaboos” (which is a misspelling of “jigaboo,” a racial slur for black people) came to light when an anonymous parent asked his child about their day. Fuming due to the revelation, he marched down to Bell Manor Elementary School and found a laminated sign in his child’s classroom that triumphantly read:
“Mrs. _____’s Jighaboos are at school today to achieve our 6th grade goals and prepare for 7th grade.”
According to the student, the class must recite the words on the sign every day during class. Students of color are in this class, making the whole “Mrs. _____’s Jighaboos” thing just that much worse.
Other classrooms at Bell Manor Elementary School have less offensive names, like “Dream Team.”
H-E-B ISD officials told KDFW (Dallas-Fort Worth’s regional Fox affiliate) that the teacher didn’t know the word is a racial slur. They also released a written statement that read:
“[We] would like to extend an apology for the inappropriate actions taken by one of our elementary teachers who failed to vet a class name. We take this situation seriously and the issue was immediately addressed with the principal and classroom teacher. Both the principal and the teacher have apologized to the parent reporting this concern.”
The father who brought this incident to the school district’s attention doesn’t care whether the teacher was aware that she used a racial slur as a class nickname. “Ignorance is not a defense,” he said.
And he is absolutely right.
Featured image by the National Archives and Records Administration as part of a cooperation project and is available via public domain.
h/t Raw Story
