The Gwinnett County School District in Georgia has launched an investigation to determine how questions referring to slaves made it onto the students’ Math homework sheets.  Check the jump for more coverage!

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The math homework assignment pictured above was given to more than 100 students at Beaver Ridge Elementary school in Norcross, Ga.  Naturally, the assignment outraged parents, community activists and members of the Georgia NAACP.

Sloan Roach, a Gwinnett County school district spokeswoman, told ABCNews.com that the students were studying famous Americans and as an attempt to create a cross-curricular worksheet, one teacher used Frederick Douglass and slavery beatings for two of the questions.

Although only one teacher wrote out the controversial questions, another teacher made copies of the assignment and it was distributed to four out of nine third grade classes at Beaver Ridge, Roach said. The school is not publicly naming any of the teachers who are suspected to be involved.

One math problem question read, “If Frederick got two beatings per day, how many beatings did he get in one week?”

Another asked how many baskets of cotton Frederick filled.

Roach said she agreed that the questions were inappropriate and part of the investigation would be to “make sure  teachers are writing questions that are appropriate and respective,” but wouldn’t speculate on what sort of action would be taken against the teachers involved or whether district teachers would be required to have additional training.

“It does not seem there was any intent of maliciousness here, it was just a teacher who wrote some bad questions,” she said. “This was an isolated case involving these teachers at this school and at this grade level.”

Parent Christopher Braxton said he was “blown away” when he saw the assignment his 8-year-old son had brought home, and told the Atlantic Journal Constitution that he will be meeting with Principal Jose DeJesus today to express his concerns. DeJesus declined to speak with ABCNews.com about the incident.

Ron Butchart, the department head for the University of Georgia’s College of Education and a historian of African-American education, said that while he hadn’t heard about the incident at Beaver Ridge Elementary, teachers are often encouraged to combine diciplines in lessons and speculated that the Beaver Ridge teacher was making “an honest effort to integrate math and social studies.”

“But God, have some sensitivity…I’m absolutely dumbfounded,” Butchart said. “This was a teacher who is taking seriously the effort to be interdisciplinary …  but what a dreadful way to do it.”

Butchart said that third graders can handle the knowledge of slavery, but should be taught it from a perspective they can understand through literature, not math.

This is not the first time Gwinnett County public schools have come under fire for teachers giving out controversial assignments to students. In September, students at another elementary school were required to read a letter in which a Saudi Arabian woman wrote approvingly of wearing the Islamic veil, her fiancé’s multiple wives and Sharia law.

Source ABC News