Mother to launch complaint after Toronto teacher allegedly compares son to a 'crackhead'

Isaiah Francis, left, with his mother Abigail Francis

A Toronto mother says she plans to file a formal complaint after a substitute teacher at an elementary school allegedly made a racist remark to her 11-year-old son.

It's been more than a week since Abigail Francis's son Isaiah, a Grade 6 student, was stunned by the response from the teacher at Norman Cook Public School.

It began like any other English assignment.

Isaiah and his class had been assigned a poetry exercise called, "All the places we love" on Nov. 28.

He didn't quite understand the assignment, and asked the teacher for clarification. The alleged response left him speechless, according to his mother.

"It means like home sweet home. Or maybe for you, in a dark alleyway like a crackhead," Francis says the teacher told her son.

Shocked, Isaiah returned to his seat trying to make sense of what he just heard, his mother says.

That's when Francis says one of his classmates told Isaiah, "Listen dude, that wasn't okay. If I had gone up and asked the same question, he wouldn't have said that to me because I'm white."  (more...)

Mother to launch complaint after Toronto teacher allegedly compares son to a 'crackhead'

So, where did Toronto learn its charming ways?

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