Investigation into Slavery Assignment Completed, Teacher Returns to Classroom

East Lansing Public Schools Superintendent Dori Leyko announced today, May 10, in a letter sent to the families of eighth-grade students that the district had “completed an investigation to thoroughly evaluate and respond to concerns and questions regarding the 2021 eighth-grade Social Studies assignment on slavery and its relevance to an assignment used in 2012.”

Matthew Christians, an eighth-grade Social Studies teacher at MacDonald Middle School, returned to teaching today. He had been placed on non-disciplinary administrative leave after ELPS administrators learned that in 2012 he had asked students to write about “the positives of slavery.”

According to Leyko’s letter, Christians “offered to and will be participating in summer and ongoing professional learning on diversity, equity, inclusion and social justice and provided access to content and instructional specialists around diversity, equity, inclusion and social justice for ongoing consultation.”

Christians and other eighth-grade Social Studies teachers will be prioritized to take “The Core Course: An Introduction to Social Justice for Educators through the Justice Leaders Collaborative,” a course that the district hopes all teachers and staff will eventually take as part of the district’s commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion.

The district is also prioritizing review and evaluation of its eighth-grade Social Studies curriculum, a process that may take most of the 2021-2022 school year. For the upcoming academic year, the district will use “alternative Black history assignments and activities from current sources (e.g. Learning for Justice – formerly Teaching Tolerance) will be used next school year and possibly beyond,” according to Leyko’s letter to parents.

In mid-April, local news outlets, including ELi, reported on an assignment that had been given to eighth-grade Social Studies students at MMS, asking students to consider how they would feel living in the conditions enslaved people faced, whether they would ever fight back, and how they might respond to seeing a beating.

Leyko told families that the investigation found that variations of the February 2021 assignment had been used since 2006 but had been “modified this school year to be used remotely and included slightly different images and prompts than the original assignment.”

The assignment, Leyko said, was part of the approved-curriculum for ELPS eighth-grade Social Studies since 2006.

All students were given full credit for the assignment regardless of the answers they provided.

ELi will provide any updates on the story, which may be addressed at this evening’s ELPS School Board meeting, held over Zoom at 7 p.m. The agenda is available here.