A Texas school district removed a teacher for giving a 7th-grade special needs class an 'extremely disturbing' worksheet with racial slurs and insults

• A Texas teacher was "separated" from their school after distributing a worksheet with insults and slurs.
• The worksheet included words like "fat" and "ugly" as well as the N-word and the R-word, per KXXV-TV.

A Texas teacher was removed after distributing worksheets to special needs students replete with offensive insults and racial slurs.

The worksheets were given to a class of about a dozen seventh-grade students with special learning requirements at Rancier Middle School, said Killeen Independent School District superintendent John Craft at a Friday press conference.

Craft said the assignment was about "trigger words, and it escalated from there, obviously in the wrong direction."

The vocabulary words used on the worksheets ranged from base insults to slurs, including "fat," "ugly," and "bitch," as well as the N-word and the R-word. The words were displayed in word scramble, fill-in-the-blank, and matching exercises, according to KXXV-TV.

"We will not condone this type of activity," Craft said. "We're still continuing to investigate, and we want to make sure that these types of incidents don't occur in any other classrooms across the district."

The teacher who disseminated the assignment "is no longer an employee with the district," Craft said, adding that it was their first year employed by the district. The assignment did not receive prior approval from administrators — nor would it have, Craft said.

"We're about doing the right thing," Craft said at the press conference. "It's how we respond to these incidents. I think we have taken swift and immediate and appropriate actions thus far."

Craft said the district had contacted the parents and students who were affected, noting that they are "coping as well as they can."

The superintendent added that the district will "grow" from the "atrocious" incident.

"We're the fourth most diverse school district in the state of Texas, and we grow from it. We start looking at cultural biases and the challenges that obviously still exist throughout our society. We always have to maintain that growth mindset. How do we make ourselves more inclusive as really a diverse school district, a diverse community, so that all of our learners and all of our cultures feel appreciated?" Craft said.