California teacher accused of 'writing the 'N'-word to describe one of her students' quits: report

A California teacher who was accused this week of captioning a student's picture with a "racial slur" has quit her job, according to local media reports.

"It took less than 48 hours for a Lincoln Unified teacher to resign after a public attack on the educator for allegedly writing the 'N'-word to describe one of her students," writes The Stockton Record's Hannah Workman.

Workman recalls, "Parents spoke out at a Lincoln Unified school board meeting Wednesday, bringing light to a photo taken by a student. Liz Manipol-Lee told trustees that her daughter, a student in Kelly Nordstrom's class, saw the teacher write the racial slur on a seating chart. The slur was above a Black student's photograph, Manipol-Lee said. Her daughter confronted Nordstrom. It's unknown how that conversation went down."

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Lincoln Unified School District spokesperson said on Friday that "while LUSD will continue to address the issues and harm resulting from the incident at one of our schools, we can confirm that the teacher has resigned from employment with our district."

Per TheRecord, Manipol-Lee alleged that Nordstrom "said she was taking notes" and that "I understand that children were able to see" what Nordstrom had written.

"In a photo sent to The Record, the photo appears to be edited, with student names and individual photos being blurred and the slur written with quotation marks around it," Workman notes, adding, "Ironically, Nordstrom began teaching the cultural awareness and diversity class at Sierra Middle School in August 2022. Parents said they were disappointed that a teacher who was supposed to foster cultural awareness in students could do the opposite."

Meanwhile, Sierra Middle School has begun searching for a new dual-language instructor, per ABC10's Vicente Vera. He recalls that Manipol-Lee revealed to the outlet that "we're told... the seating chart is where the teacher uses to take her notes and notate points. From my understanding, she might have heard this kid say a form of that word and very casually notated it on her clipboard. But not in the same way he said it, in the form of a racial slur."

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Workman's report is available at this link. Vera's is here.