The Glade 4.0

A Florida father says he was shocked to find a note in his fourth-grade son's backpack suggesting that his teacher instructed students to write letters on their willingness to give up their constitutional rights.

Aaron Harvey told WOKV.com that his 10-year-old son was told to write a note reading, "I am willing to give up some of my constitutional rights in order to be safer or more secure," after a civics lesson at the end of last year.

Harvey said he found the note earlier this month and obtained the curriculum guide for the lesson, which he said was geared toward helping students "determine their opinions on which rights they value most and least," the report states.

He told the station that his son's teacher instructed several students in the class to write the statement and sign it. He said the story was corroborated by other parents with children in the class.

Harvey, a military veteran, told FirstCoastNews.com he thinks the statement reflects the teacher's personal opinion.

"I don't believe that any American or American child should be asked to write this," he said.

Duval County Public Schools issued a statement Friday to FirstCoastNews.com in which they said the lesson was consistent with the district's "efforts to broaden civics-based education and develop critical thinking skills among our students."

"The lesson builds awareness of First Amendment rights through a partnership with an association of local attorneys. Our possible concern rests with a follow-up activity that may have been conducted after the lesson," the statement read.

An upstate New York school district apologized Friday for a high school writing assignment that asked students to “argue Jews are evil” while making a persuasive argument blaming them for the problems of Nazi Germany.

Superintendent Marguerite Vanden Wyngaard said administrators were discussing what official action the unidentified 10th-grade teacher at Albany High School will face for the assignment given to students on Monday.

According to The Epoch Times, the teacher has been removed from the class.

The assignment, first reported Friday by the Albany Times Union, asked students to research Nazi propaganda, then assume their teacher was a Nazi government official who had to be convinced of their loyalty. The assignment told students they "must argue that Jews are evil."

"This assignment for some of our students at Albany High School was completely unacceptable. It displayed a level of insensitivity that we absolutely will not tolerate in our school community," Wyngaard said at a news conference Friday at the United Jewish Federation. "I'm deeply apologetic to all of our students, all of our families and the entire community."

Wyngaard spoke in a room full of books on the Holocaust and was flanked by school board officials and representatives of Jewish organizations. Speakers said the Anti-Defamation League will run sensitivity programs at the school for staff and students.

"After this unfortunate lesson we know that the Albany School District will rededicate themselves to teaching about how prejudice led to genocide and to help their students build a better community," said Shelly Shapiro, director of the Holocaust Survivors & Friends Education Center.

School officials say they don't believe the teacher who handed out the assignment had malicious intent. The purpose of the assignment was to have students make an argument based on limited information, but it should have been worded differently, officials said.

The school district has not named the teacher, who was described as a veteran. The assignment was brought to administrators' attention by a parent of one of the students. Some students refused to write the assignment.

The teacher's assignment told students they "must argue that Jews are evil, and use solid rationale from government propaganda to convince me of your loyalty to the Third Reich!"

Earlier this year, a teacher at Public School 59 in Manhattan caused a controversy by giving fourth-graders a math homework assignment that used scenarios about killing and whipping slaves. The school's principal ordered sensitivity training for the entire staff.