District 36 Changes Policy After Anger Over Slavery Film

District 36 officials changed policy about showing supplemental videos in classrooms at a meeting last night after parents complained about a slavery film that was shown to some fourth-graders at Greeley School, the Tribune reports.

Some classes were shown parts of the film "The Middle Passage," which touches on the horrors of slavery including suicide and rape on slave ships. The HBO documentary is "a realistic look at the horrors of the slave trade, told entirely through the voice of a dead African slave whose spirit haunts the ocean route," according to IMDB.

“The only thing that teachers may initially bring in is G-rated material, and after that they’ll have to go through an approval process,” Interim Superintendant Mark Friedman told the Tribune.

A crowd of parents gathered at the District 36 board meeting Tuesday night to voice opinions about the incident, according to Pioneer Press. The board approved a policy that requires all outside materials that are not G-rated to be pre-approved by the principal and select teachers, according to Pioneer Press.

At the meeting, district officials said two substitute teachers in two fourth grade classrooms played part of the movie, and in a third class, the teacher only showed a few minutes of the film before stopping it, according to Pioneer Press.

A group of parents brought the issue to the district Friday, and administrators, teachers and the principal of Greeley School met Tuesday, according to the Tribune.

To read more about this story, click here for the Tribune story and here for the Pioneer Press story.