Dad Outraged When He Sees Explicit Question on Daughter's Homework Assignment
It seems like every school year, there’s some teacher somewhere in America who includes a question or questions so wildly inappropriate on a homework sheet or a test that it goes viral for all the wrong jaw-dropping reasons.
Call it liberalism seeping into our public schools, or call it the perversion of our modern world. Either way, it’s enough to make cringing parents enraged.
This year’s apparent winner is an unnamed teacher at Westside High School in Jacksonville, Florida who allegedly wanted to teach their students about the miracle of genetics. Unfortunately, they decided to do it the Maury Povich way — and father Omar Austin was left nauseated.
Austin originally called attention to it in a Facebook post on Wednesday:
The question was this: “Ursula was devastated when her boyfriend broke up with her after having sex. To get revenge, she had sex with his best friend the next day. Ursula had a beautiful baby girl nine months later. Ursula has type O blood, her ex-boyfriend has AB blood and his best friend is type A blood. If her baby daddy is her ex-boyfriend what could the possible blood type(s) of her baby NOT be.”
There are two correct answers to this question, which are 1) O and 2) “Are you busy? I need to talk with you in my office for a few minutes. Could you please bring your keycard and security lanyard?”
Austin was decidedly unhappy.
“The words ‘baby daddy’ and ‘baby mama’ being used, that’s foresight,” Austin said, according to WTLV-TV. “The fact that she’s having sex with one guy and to get revenge on this guy she has sex with his best friend the next day? I mean, that’s just not something that I want to teach any student.”
Austin wanted answers and claims the school district told him that the homework assignment “was a district-generated worksheet that her teacher just printed offline and it was given to the students.”
“I want it to be acknowledged. I want it to be reviewed. And I want it to be changed. I think that we can do better.”
Before we get to the risible nature of this excuse, can’t you just picture the curriculum meetings at Westside High?
Administrator 1: “Well, George, I think our human biology stuff curriculum is pretty well beefed up, but I don’t think we focus enough resources on how students can figure out who their baby daddy really is.”
Administrator 2: “You know, I think you’re right, Jenny. We need to prepare our students for our 21st century. We can’t have Westside High graduates on ‘Maury’ pointing to a split-screen of the third guy they’ve tested for paternity and their toddler, hysterically screaming, ‘LOOK AT HIS EYES! LOOK AT HIS EYES! He’s got to be the baby daddy!’ They need to be prepared for the challenging environment they’re going to face in the digital workplace.”
Administrator 1: “Exactly. And why is our conversation so stilted and expository?”
Administrator 2: “I think it’s because it’s being written by someone making a weak stab at satire for an article when this all blows up in our face a few months from now.”
Administrator 1: “Ah, gotcha. Want to grab Panera?”
Somewhere in the intervening days between the story breaking and the realization that the “district-generated worksheet” thing didn’t smooth things over quite the way things had been expected, Duval County Public Schools tried to run damage control.
“The question was highly inappropriate and was not part of a district assessment,” the statement read.
“We are thankful to the parent who contacted the school directly to share his concerns. Immediately upon being made aware of this matter, school and district leaders began conducting a review of the situation.
“Appropriate and corrective action will be taken. We encourage parents to contact their school leaders directly if they ever have any concerns about their child’s school and instructional experience so that we can immediately work to problem-solve.”
When asked if the “district-approved worksheet” had been sent to other schools, a DCPS spokesman said, “not to my knowledge.”
DCPS school board member Scott Shine, meanwhile, called the document’s question into legitimacy.
“We have to confirm, did someone put this in here as a sabotage? Is this a mistake?” Shine said.
So maybe it is just fake news and we’re all just falling for a clever ruse perpetrated by someone with a grudge against a certain educator or teacher’s unions. Or maybe it’s a student prank. It certainly seems suspicious, and why did the school say it was a district resource? I have to admit this does smell a bit fishy, so I think we should wait for — oh wait, WTLV-TV confirmed late Friday that the worksheet had in fact come from an anatomy teacher and the DCPS admitted it had in fact been district-generated.
“Our review of the matter indicates the question used in the anatomy assignment was created by another teacher in the district,” a statement from the district read. “It was then shared on a digital platform that is used by our teachers. This platform is a valuable tool for teachers to exchange classroom resources. While this was not a district created item, we recognize that this falls well short of our standard of providing instructional excellence for every student, every day and we would like to apologize to the students and their families.”
“Once school and district leaders became aware of this matter, we worked quickly to remove the question from the digital platform and began a review. Appropriate and corrective action is pending this review. As stated earlier, we appreciate the parent who brought this to our attention and welcome any parent or guardian with concerns about their child’s instructional experience to immediately contact their school.”
In short, I doubt I’m going to be writing a retraction of any of this. Sadly, this isn’t the first time we’ve seen this sort of stupidity come from bored and debased teachers, nor will it be the last. That’s where our education system is right now. Wonderful.
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