NEW ROCHELLE, NY (June 6, 2022) — The City School District of New Rochelle is investigating how “inappropriate” test preparation materials came into use in a 6th grade English class at Albert Leonard Middle School.
UPDATE: The investigation is now complete. See update below.
In a statement, the City School District of New Rochelle it was aware of allegations that have been made on social media regarding test preparation materials at Albert Leonard Middle School and promised to disclose the results of its investigation into the incident.
“The materials contained an inappropriate message that is not supported by the values and standards of our school district. The school district, with the support of our technology department, immediately began an investigation to determine the events that led to the contents of the preparation material. Once our fact finding is complete, we will send formal notification to the school community. We appreciate your patience as we complete a thorough investigation of this matter.”
The term “CONFLICT” was defined as “A serious disagreement or argument”.
The example provided was “Black people are dumb/ Thats idiotic to call black people dumb.”
The contraction “that’s” for “that is” was spelled incorrectly as “thats”.
UPDATE: The City School District of New Rochelle has completed its investigation and issued a statement.
Following a thorough investigation, the City School District of New Rochelle has determined that an Albert Leonard Middle School student’s text-based, written response from the previous year to an English Language Arts review assignment on the historical novel Copper Sun was shared with students and taken out of context on social media. The statement in question was a student’s text-supported answer from a previous year to a test review question which required students to describe a conflict depicted in Copper Sun.
The fiction-based novel written by Sharon M. Draper was released in 2006. The book is about the Transatlantic slave trade in South Carolina in 1738, and reflects misperceptions held by a character in the book – a white indentured servant working alongside slaves – and how her thoughts led to conflict within the story and the character herself.
The part about “shared with students and taken out of context on social media” appears to refer to Nikki Wigfall and the Moms of New Rochelle Facebook Group.
Wigfall has been posting unsubstantiated, possibly defamatory comments about the classroom teacher and the test material in the Moms of New Rochelle Facebook Group, a notorious, unreliable, haven for fact-free gossip and libel with lax to non-existent editorial standards.
Facts: The document in question was posted to my son’s classroom smartboard. Multiple students in the class reported to the administration that exactly what my son said happened, in fact, happened.
The document was not altered by a student.
The document belongs to the teacher.
The teacher is responsible for her work and what is delivered to her students.
The teacher copy/pasted the statement, which was quoted from a book that the students had not even read and was not properly referenced.
The district will eventually put out a statement.
Meanwhile my kid spent the weekend in emotional turmoil over all of this. Imagine, being 12, thinking your teacher is making racist statements and you are her student and she is responsible for your grades, essentially, your academic future.
And that’s that.
