A middle school parent in California says she was shocked to learn her son’s teacher allowed students to create a game board based on deportation as a class project.
The student, 12-year-old Jake Hull at Cesar Chavez Middle School in Oceanside, says he thought the deportation-themed board game was downright racist, and said his teacher even signed off on the theme.
He told his group on the project in his career class that he thought the theme was a bad idea. ‘We should do something like Mario Kart,’ Jake says he told the group, adding ‘I don’t think we should do this.’
The aim of the game that the students dubbed ‘Deportation Time’ is to be the first player ‘to cross the border to the USA and reach the American flag.’
The teacher at Cesar Chavez Middle School allowed a group of students on a project to base their game concept on deportation and using explosives to blow up a border wall
It is ‘MANDATORY’ to stop at the ‘Bomb Shop’ because you need to blow up the border wall in order to proceed to the game’s objective which is getting into America and reaching the flag
In the game it is also ‘MANDATORY’ that you go to a ‘Bomb Shop’ in order to blow up the wall and cross the border, according to the Los Angeles Times.
If a player rolls a 2 they can choose to deport another player back to the start. A player will be penalized if they land on ‘La Migra caught you, go back to check point.’
La Migra is a term for border patrol.
A player will also be penalized if they land on ‘You’ve been taken into custody skip 3 turns’ space.
The student body at Cesar Chavez Middle School is majority Hispanic.
The four person team on the class project had one Hispanic student in the group.
Jake said they submitted the completed assignment and got it back without his teacher commenting on the content.
In a statement, Oceanside schools Supt. Julie Vitale said the families of the students involved have been contacted.
‘While their intention may have been to leverage a current event, we believe it is our responsibility as educators to help them understand that the theme is potentially painful and hurtful to many people,’ Vitale said in a statement to the Los Angeles Times.
The school district’s superintendent released a statement about the project at Cesar Chavez Middle School (pictured) but no word if the teacher will face any disciplinary action
‘We will be using this opportunity to help the students learn that words must be measured very carefully for unintended consequences — an important life lesson.’
However, Jake’s mother, Danielle Watkins, feels the bigger issue is that the teacher knew about the game’s content and didn’t stop it or address how it could be offensive.
‘The adult in the situation has the chance to mold minds for the better and just basically kind of dropped the ball completely,’ Watkins said.