A fifth-grade teacher in Massachusetts has been placed on paid leave after a series of incidents including holding a mock slave auction, using a racial slur, and calling out the student who reported the slur, a school official said.
He said the first incident — a mock slave auction — took place in January during a history lesson on the economy of the Southern colonies. In the second incident, in April, the teacher was reading aloud from a book and used a slur, which the district later discovered does not appear in the book, officials said. Martineau told parents in his statement that dehumanizing words such as slurs should not be spoken by employees or students.