Sacramento NAACP condemns Elk Grove teacher’s use of racist meme in class; demands apology
The Greater Sacramento NAACP is demanding an apology to the Black community and an investigation by Elk Grove Unified School District officials into a district teacher who passed racist materials to students as part of their lessons during Black History Month.
“The Elk Grove Unified School District should issue a formal apology to the entire Black community, acknowledging the harm caused by the incident and outlining the corrective steps that will be taken to prevent a similar incident from happening again,” Sacramento NAACP leaders said in a statement Friday condemning the “glorification of racial stereotypes as a learning strategy in Elk Grove Unified School District.”
A teacher at Katherine Albiani Middle School in Elk Grove distributed the fake “N-bucks” currency printed with the anti-Black slur and rife with racist imagery to students in late February. The bill showed an image of a Black minstrel character among other offensive images and contained phrases including “this is NOT a welfare dollar or food stamp.”
The currency was part of a worksheet titled “History of the N-Word,” and contained warnings that some of the language could be offensive to children.
“Distributing racist, offensive material to students is not only harmful to the targeted population, but it also indoctrinates other communities to believe that it is acceptable to disrespect the Black community,” the NAACP’s statement continued. “Black students should be able to attend school, obtain a quality education, and develop other skills needed to advance in life. However, the people entrusted with their education too often reopen wounds that are generations deep.”
The teacher is on administrative leave as Elk Grove Unified continues its investigation into the incident and the source of the materials. Chris Rauschenfels, principal at Albiani Middle School, sent a letter to parent March 3 asserting that the materials “do not represent nor reflect the district’s core values.”
Incident called a ‘failed intervention’
Elk Grove Unified superintendent Christopher Hoffman apologized in a letter to district parents, students and staff on Thursday co-signed by district school board President Michael Vargas and posted to the district’s website.
“As a community leader in the role of superintendent, I take responsibility for these experiences. I, along with the Board of Trustees, am committed to educational excellence for all students, and we achieve that by continuously improving the experiences of our Black/African-American students,” Hoffman wrote.
Hoffman in the letter called the incident a “failed intervention for students,” adding that the lesson was linked to an article that attempted to trace the origins of the anti-Black slur. He said the materials were not approved by the district.
Hoffman further promised Elk Grove Unified would take “restorative steps” to “ensure a safe and positive learning environment” at Albiani following the incident — including future meetings with families and district staff at later dates to discuss those steps.
He also vowed the district would “continue listening to the voices of our students, including our student equity councils and Black Student Unions, as well as our parents/guardians, staff, and community members.”
Speakers confronted Elk Grove Unified School District board leaders at their Tuesday meeting. They included Kathy Wilson, a member of Families of Black Students United, and an instructional coach in the district. Wilson called in the incident Feb. 27, The Bee reported.
“The incident I reported on Thursday, February 27th about the ‘N-bucks’ is far bigger than me,” Wilson said. “It is a reflection of the systemic challenges Black students, family staff and the broader community have faced for generations.”
Sacramento NAACP officials in the statement said they were available to review lesson plans or speak to classes about the contributions of Black Americans in hopes to “prevent incidents like this from happening again.”
“We encourage all school districts to educate students on Black history because Black history is American history,” the statement read.
Latest in string of Elk Grove racist incidents
This incident at Albiani Middle School lays fresh racial wounds in Elk Grove, little more than a month after an electronic construction sign along Franklin Boulevard near Laguna Boulevard was altered to display an anti-Black slur in January.
The racist image was captured by a passerby visiting from New Orleans who commented on social media: “No one has to be subjected to this ignorance like I did.”
The message board belonged to a Sacramento Area Sewer District contractor working on the ongoing Harvest Water Project in south Elk Grove, said Elk Grove officials. The city at the time said it was investigating the incident with sewer district officials.
Abashed city leaders apologized to the community on social media declaring that “Elk Grove is no place for hate.”
The controversy at Albiani is but the latest for a district — California’s fifth-largest — that has wrestled with racism and racist incidents in recent years.
In 2021, two Elk Grove Unified School District employees were dismissed after a Black parent saw a Confederate battle flag displayed inside their district-issued fleet van and reported the sighting to district officials.
“It’s a (gutsy) move, driving around Elk Grove, going from school to school. I felt mad that they could drive around with the flag,” the parent, Monty Watkins, told The Bee at the time. “My son was called the N-word on his campus. To see that van, it resonated more.”
Pleasant Grove High School students in 2017 went viral for a Snapchat video directing a barrage of slurs against Black students on campus. The video amassed four million hits in four days on the platform. One girl in the video called Black people “trash” who “need to die.”
Black students at the east Elk Grove school that year reported small nooses dangling from trees on the campus. A Bee story that year reported a white student was alleged to have urinated on a Black student’s car after calling the student a slur while other Black students said they received threats from their white peers.
Black students and their families confronted school and district leaders at a January 2018 meeting on race specially called by the district to address the acts.
This story was originally published March 7, 2025 at 9:50 AM.
.JPG)