Daughter's homework assignment shocks one North Carolina dad

RALEIGH (WPVI) -- At around 6:30 Wednesday night, James Iadanza sat down with his daughter to help her do her homework. The fourth grader had to complete a reading assignment.

Iadanza was helping his daughter when he says one statement in particular caught him off-guard.

"Oh, I was shocked. I was completely shocked," said Iadanza.

In one of the homework assignment's scenarios, a mom says 'I'm going to kill you, Tommy.'

"I just don't think in a 4th grade setting it's acceptable. Sorry," he said. "They could have a nightmare about it."

Iadanza's daughter is in 4th grade at Leesville Elementary School in Raleigh, North Carolina. The teacher there created scenarios and then asked a series of questions. In one of the set-ups, the mom says she's going to kill her son after he broke a window with a baseball.

Iadanza gets that the threat is figurative, but says the language is too harsh for young kids because they take everything literally.

"They're still developing. I mean you gotta be kidding me. I just don't think it's right," he said.

The Wake County Public School System would not comment on the language of the assignment. A spokesperson would only explain what the assignment was intended to teach children.

"The activity listed ... appears to be teaching a reading skill of inference. Inference is using facts, logic, observations, or reasoning to come to an assumption or conclusion," said WCPSS spokesperson Lisa Luten.

Though Iadanza doesn't agree with the assignment, he helped his daughter finish the work and sent her off to school with it Thursday.

He doesn't want the assignment used in the curriculum in the future.

"I don't want stuff like this sent home. There's other ways to teach kids about how to read or how to understand something they already read," said Iadanza.