Assignment Asking Students If Parkland Shooter Deserves to Die Pulled

A quiz that asked Florida high school students about whether a gunman who opened fire and allegedly killed 17 people deserved to die has been yanked from the school's curriculum, school administrators say. 

The worksheet given to the ninth-graders at Coral Glades High School in Coral Springs, Florida on Friday was titled "Does Nikolas Cruz Deserve to Die?" and was provided by an academic subscription service provided by the Scholastic Corporation. Included with the assignment was an Oct 8th article on capital punishment from the New York Times' Upfront Magazine, according to WPLG-TV. 

Coral Glades High School is located less than 5 miles from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, where 17 people were killed when Cruz allegedly opened fire on multiple classrooms there. 

The worksheet is a quiz with multiple choice answers that includes questions like "What does the Eighth Amendment prohibit?" and "Why did the Supreme Court impose a moratorium on executions in 1972?" 

An image of the worksheet was tweeted out by Cameron Kasky, which quickly went viral. 

This worksheet was given to students in @BrowardSchools. I cannot begin to express how pathetic I find this. Our schoolboard should add this to the list of 1000+ reasons to be ashamed.

Kasky was even quoted in one of the questions seen on the assignment, which read: "In the article, Cameron Kasky says 'Let him rot forever.' His tone can be described as ____." The multiple choice answers students could choose from included; "angry," "fearful," "gloomy," and "truthful." 

The Broward County School District apologized for the assignment in a statement posted to its website, saying the "assignment with insensitive content" had been pulled and that school administrators hadn't been aware of it when it was assigned. 

"The material was from a subscription-based publication, used as a curriculum resource," the statement read. "The school's leadership has pulled the assignment, is instituting an approved review process of all such materials and regrets that this incident occurred. Broward County Public Schools is working with the publishers to make them aware of our concerns."

Cruz is awaiting trial and faces the death penalty, if convicted. 

Photo: Getty Images


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