Racial slur accidentally lands on Seminole students’ spelling list

SANFORD — A class of firstgraders at Hamilton Elementary School in Sanford brought home a spelling list that contained a racial slur the apologetic teacher said resulted from a typo, according to the Seminole County school district.

The word was supposed to read, “bigger.” But the word on the spelling list began with the letter “N,” not the letter “B.”

The spelling list contained words students were to study during the next six weeks. The racial slur appeared on the list for the week of Feb. 26, so many families had not yet seen it, said Michael Lawrence, a school district spokesman, in an email Saturday.

He said the teacher — who has taught at Hamilton for 16 years — spotted it the night the list went home and told her principal the next morning. They revised the list and replaced the papers in students’ “take-home folders” that day. The teacher said she must have hit the “N” key instead of the “B,” which is next to it on a keyboard, he said.

The other words on the list for that week included, “faster,” “fastest”, “taller”, “tallest”, “shorter” and “shortest.” The word “bigger” should have been just before “biggest” on the 10-word list.

At least one parent did see the slur and was upset. She contacted the principal, a district administrator and a local TV station, Lawrence said.

The teacher felt terrible, he said, and apologized in a short note at the top of the new list. “Spell check doesn’t catch the derogatory word the typo spelled, unfortunately,” he added.

A little more than half of Hamilton’s student population is black.

“No parents have asked to move their kids because of this mistake and have shown the teacher support and understanding,” Lawrence added.