A Massachusetts fifth-grade teacher has been placed on paid administrative leave for hosting a “mock slave auction” and using racist slurs in the classroom, the school district’s superintendent announced.
In a letter to parents dated May 29, Northborough and Southborough Public Schools Superintendent Gregory L. Martineau said the teacher, whose identity has not been released, held a mock auction in January during a history lesson about the economies of the Southern colonies.
During the lesson, the teacher “asked two kids of color who were sitting at the front of the classroom to stand up,” Martineau said, and the class discussed their physical characteristics, including their teeth and muscle strength.
In April, the same teacher read a book that is not part of the core curriculum to his class and used racist language that does not appear in the book.
“Hosting a mock slave auction is unacceptable,” Martineau wrote, noting that doing so runs counter to the district’s values.
He said he learned about the two incidents from his parents on April 24.
“The teacher inappropriately criticized a student who reported that the teacher had made racist comments, which is unacceptable,” he said in a statement, adding that the parents of the students in the class met with both the teacher and the principal the following day, without disclosing the date.
Kathleen A. Valenti, listed as principal of the Margaret A. Neary School in Southborough, Massachusetts, has also been placed on paid administrative leave from May 6 to 16, according to the letter.
More than 65% of the school’s students are white and less than 2% are black, according to enrollment data.
“Paid administrative leave will allow for a thorough and fair investigation,” Martineau said. “The district is currently pursuing due process with the educator who is on administrative leave.”
Valenti could not immediately be reached for comment Sunday. The Massachusetts Teachers Association did not immediately respond to a request for comment Sunday.
Martineau apologized to the parents and said he took ultimate responsibility.
“We accept there were failures in this process which further complicate the situation,” he said.
In March, investigators in Massachusetts announced they were filing criminal charges against six teenagers who participated in “racist online chats” that included a “mock slave auction.”
Also in 2022, a North Carolina school board announced it would review its student conduct and discipline policies following an incident in which a white middle school student pretended to sell a Black classmate in a similar mock auction.
