Thread: Parents Claim School Assignment Was Discriminatory

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.

http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?secti ... id=4023052

Parents Claim School Assignment Was Discriminatory
MONTEBELLO - Parents of seventh-grade students at a Montebello middle school asked a teacher to apologize today 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 ABC7 that he met with the school principal and said there was an apology, but the teacher has denied giving the assignment.

"She denied it," Carrillo said at a news conference at the school. "She said it was taken out of context, that she didn't ask the question about the coyote. Two of the students did fill out the assignment, where they put `coyote' following the words in the teacher's instructions."

A parent at the news conference said she was offended by the assignment. "She's not immigration," Rose Herrera said. "I told the principal she's a teacher, not immigration, OK?"

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

"The assignment was part of the curriculum," Kerr told ABC7. "I think there was an assignment that was given that in looking at it could have been misinterpreted in terms of information that was requested."

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

A call placed to the school for further comment was not answered. According to the school's Web site, Corina Villaraigosa, the wife of Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, is the bilingual coordinator for the campus.