A New Jersey school is coming under the fire after an elementary school class held a mock slave auction. The NJ.com reported that, fifth-graders at the Jefferson School in Maplewood held the mock auction while under the supervision of a substitute teacher.

The website said that the activity was not part of the curriculum in the South Orange-Maplewood School District.

“There was a sale of a black child by white children in the classroom,” Tracey Jarmon-Woods, parent of a student in the another class at school, told to CBS New York. “If you’re demoralized — sold on a block in 2017 — it may affect you the rest of your life.”

The classroom’s regular teacher found out about the mock auction, that had been videotaped, after returning and also sent a letter home to parents.

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The teacher, who has not been named, said that the incident would be used as a “teachable moment to elaborate on the gravity of this part in our history,” according to the copy of letter obtained by The Maplewoodian website.

The school district sent a statement to the website which said it did not condone the activity. It blamed the substitute and said that it would “look again at training and improved supervisory protocols for substitutes.”

The statement from the district’s communications director,Suzanne M. Turner, did not offer an apology.

Superintendent John Ramos later apologized at the school board meeting.

A letter sent to the parents from school which said the video shows the students treating the auction “lightly.”

The incident comes on the heels of an assignment at the another school in same district in which students made posters for slave auctions.The district also apologized for that incident.

Mrudula Duddempudi.