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Gaston Co. mother stunned by racial slurs in 6-year-old's homework

GASTON COUNTY, N.C. — A Gaston County mother said she was shocked when her 6-year-old daughter’s homework included two racial slurs.

“School is not a place for hate speech,” Jennifer Thompson said.

Thompson’s daughter is a first-grader at H.H. Beam Elementary School. She said her daughter brought home a spelling assignment that listed 10 words and included derogatory terms for people of Asian and African descent.

Thompson said she had to explain to her daughter why it was a bad word. She said before this week, the word “ugly” was the worst description her daughter knew. Thompson said now her daughter knows something worse.

“It makes me question what else they are teaching them in school,” Thompson said.

The teacher was trying to teach students words with two "O's" in the middle.

Thompson said she told the teacher her daughter will not use that word in her homework, which she said was created by the first-grade teacher.

Channel 9 sent the list to school officials.

They said it was an oversight by the teacher who mistook the word for meaning a mess.

Eyewitness News reporter Ken Lemon asked a school spokesman if there is an effort to create a curriculum so that something like this doesn't happen again. The spokesman said he didn't know, but said the study sheet won't be used again.

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