Rock Hill 5th-graders will no longer pick cotton during field trip after complaints

ROCK HILL, S.C. — The Rock Hill School District is making changes to a field trip for fifth-graders after a parent complained about the activities it included.

Every year for 15 years, elementary students have taken a field trip to the Carroll School out in the country on Mobley Store Road.

It's an old schoolhouse on the National Register of Historic Places, built in 1929, and surrounded by cotton fields.

It's the image of handpicking cotton, that started the controversy. In part of the field trip, students picked cotton and sang songs.

York County Councilman Bump Roddey, whose own son took the field trip last year, said it's singing the songs that's offensive to some, because they're reminiscent of slave songs.

"It really brings up some real hard feelings," Roddey said.  "Maybe not the wording representing a slave song, but the fashion in the repeating and the chanting of the song."

On Monday night, the school district sent out an email to families saying students will no longer be picking cotton on the trip or singing the song at the center of the controversy.

The Rock Hill School District had produced its own YouTube video showcasing former Carroll students, who now lead the field trip, and it shows students picking cotton and singing. The district had said the trip helps them connect in a real way to Great Depression-era history.

After a parent complained about it, Democrat state Rep. John King took issue with the field trip too. His concern was the reported lighthearted way the event was done.

"What happened on this field trip was insensitive and inaccurate. Something has gone terribly wrong when slavery is treated as a game," King said.

The parent who first raised concerns, Jessica Blanchard, did not want to talk to Channel 9 last month. Instead, she sent a comment on Facebook saying she's hoping the school district will hear her concern, and make a change, but she didn't feel the need to do more interviews on the matter.

Roddey said there should have been more thought to how the backbreaking work of picking cotton is portrayed.

"It definitely wasn't a game situation for those who had to endure those types of activities," he said.

The school district sent Channel 9 a copy of the permission slip that parents had to sign before sending their kids on the field trip. It states they would be picking cotton, in addition to planting a garden, and eating a traditional cornbread and apple juice snack.

The school district sent a statement amid the controversy saying, "The song that is sung by the students as they participate in picking cotton, as it was done in the Great Depression time period, was originally written by an African American instructor who currently works with students at the Carroll School.  He did not intend it to sound like, or in any way be a “slave song” as it has been characterized.  The lyrics came from his experience as an African American farmer picking cotton and making money for his family in the Great Depression time period."

The district also said in a statement that leaders were working with the parent who complained and reviewing the trip.

Official have since decided to eliminate picking cotton and the song, saying, "The District regrets that what was intended to be an educational opportunity where Carroll School alumni could share some of their life experiences with elementary students has caused other members of our community to feel offended or hurt."

The changes go into effect immediately.

Cox Media Group