Teacher Suspended Over Ferguson Shooting 'Skit'

An Alabama teacher has been suspended without pay after a lesson this week that had parents fuming. An unidentified female teacher at Selma's Brantley Elementary was discussing current affairs with her sixth-grade class when a student brought up the Michael Brown shooting, the superintendent tells the Selma-Times Journal. That's when the teacher reportedly told students to research the shooting, including where each bullet hit Brown, before the class re-enacted the event in what one parent calls an "absurd" skit, per the New York Daily News—though it isn't clear if the teacher was the one to suggest that idea.

WSFA notes the suspension was handed down yesterday after an investigation. Parent Jessica Baughn, who brought attention to the incident by posting about it on social media, called the teacher's actions "nowhere near right." As part of the re-enactment, a white student shot fake paper bullets out of a gun, also made of paper, while a black child fell "on the ground like he's dead," she says. "I understand talking about current history," Baughn adds, but "they are teaching these children to hate one another when we're supposed to be teaching them to love one another." The superintendent said the teacher would return to the classroom in the future. (More Alabama stories.)