Write a 'fun' slave song, this teacher told her class. She’s back after 4 days on leave

A Maryland high school teacher who told her English class to “have fun” writing slave songs for an assignment returned to the classroom after four days of leave Tuesday, according to the school.

The written assignment at Mount Hebron High School, which was spurred by a lesson on “The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass,” instructed students to write their own slave song and “have fun” and “entertain us all,” the Baltimore Sun reported.

It was quickly met with outcry by parents and prompted an apology for the assignment from the school’s principal Andrew Cockley, according to NBC Washington.

“The activity was culturally insensitive and caused discomfort for many students,” Cockley wrote in the email to parents Dec. 7, adding that “the assignment has been removed.”

But the incident was not the first in the Howard County school system to come under fire for racial insensitivity, according to the Sun. A student at another school in the county uploaded a photo of herself in blackface last month that used a racial slur, and another student at a nearby high school used the same slur in a selfie with a gun where she threatened to shoot black people, the paper reported.

Community leaders criticized the school, which closed the investigation and did not name the teacher responsible, for not tackling the incidents “systemically.”

“That's a huge frustration for those of us who are trying to console the students who are victims of these social media posts because leadership didn't do the right thing and address this systemically,” Larry Walker, president of the African American Community Roundtable, told the Sun. “It takes the leadership standing up to the community, saying this is not tolerable.”

Howard County Superintendent Renee Foose told the paper that she had received criticism from both directions for her handling of the assignment and the system’s subsequent apology.

“Some thought we shouldn't have apologized; some thought we were too quick to apologize,” Foose said, according to the Sun, adding that the system was still working to manage “blowback” from the assignment and recent photos. “I do not believe you can ever be too quick to apologize.”

This story was originally published December 14, 2016 at 12:07 PM with the headline "Write a 'fun' slave song, this teacher told her class. She’s back after 4 days on leave."