I heard on the radio the teacher was hispanic.

http://cbs2.com/topstories/local_story_083175050.html

Mar 24, 2006 2:49 pm US/Pacific

Parents Claim School Assignment Was Discriminatory

(CBS) MONTEBELLO Parents of seventh-grade students at a Montebello middle school asked a teacher to apologize Friday and requested she be transferred to another classroom over a homework assignment they found insulting.

Attorney Luis Carrillo, on behalf of a group of unhappy parents, said the teacher asked the children in a homework assignment how their parents entered the United States, and specifically how much they paid a "coyote" smuggler to get them into the country.

The name of the teacher was not immediately known. Carrillo said the Eastmont Intermediate School students are citizens of the United States and that their parents were offended by the assignment.

The lawyer told reporters that he met with the school principal and said there was an apology, but the teacher has denied giving the assignment.

Gene Kerr, the Montebello Unified School District assistant superintendent, told the station the uproar was an apparent misunderstanding.

Students said that the teacher is of Mexican descent. District officials said offended students will be removed from the teacher's classroom.