Family objects to ‘Civil War Day’ after pupil calls son slave

Curriculum should be updated for today, parents say.

The parents of a Cobb County fifth-grader are angry at the school district for allowing students to dress up for “Civil War Day.”

The mother asked not to be named to protect the privacy of her family.

She was aware of the curriculum because her older son attended Big Shanty School in Kennesaw three years ago. At the time, the older son decided to stay home rather than dress up for the day because of the inherent issues with being black and the Civil War.

This time, her fifth-grader didn’t want to miss a day to see his friends and be social at school, she said.

Cobb County School District spokesman John Stafford said the fifth-grade students “were given the option to dress in period attire.”

“But no student was told they had to dress up,” Stafford said, “and they didn’t have to dress in any particular way.”

The mother brought it up to both principal Kelly Luscre and assistant principal Niles Yates before the history lesson started, saying, “Here we go again.”

But the school leaders gave students the options of not dressing up or staying home — and a third option: going to the library instead of class. “I don’t dislike the people or the school,” the mother told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “I chose the teachers specifically, and they’ve been awesome. This is a curriculum issue.”

However, asking fifth-graders to dress up for a war “simulation,” as the class was invited to do, sets them up for failure, she said.

“Toward the end of school break last week,” the woman said, “my son walked over and said, ‘Mom, something happened at school.’”

She said her stomach dropped when he told her how one of his friends, a white child, said he was dressed as a plantation owner.

When the woman’s son asked his friend why he would dress that way, the friend said, “We had to dress up, so I’m a plantation owner and you’re my slave.”

As soon as classes were back in session Monday, the mother called and asked for a meeting. As a woman who holds bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate degrees in education, the mother said she understands curriculum and has no problem with “experiential learning” activities such as visiting the traveling museum held within the school.

“During the meeting, I asked about dressing for the Holocaust, and they acted like that was absurd,” the mother said. “There is a visceral reaction.”

After the first meeting, the mother reached out to the school superintendent, the father wrote a letter to the principals and another meeting was set up. During a second meeting Thursday, the parents expected an apology and some effort to change the curriculum. Instead, the woman said the principals defended the curriculum and said no other parents had complained. “They’ve done the same things for 20 years, but how they teach has to be updated with the times,” the mother said. “Just because you’ve done something for many years doesn’t mean it’s effective in 2017.”

‘They’ve done the same things for 20 years, but how they teach has to be updated with the times. Just because you’ve done something for many years doesn’t mean it’s effective in 2017.’ Mother of Cobb County fifth-grader who is upset at the school district for allowing students to dress up for “Civil War Day”