One parent’s pleas and outrage have prompted administrators at a Cerritos high school to discontinue a classroom activity that simulated the slave system in colonial America by binding students’ hands together, lying them down in a dark room and showing them a clip of the film “Roots.”

The intention behind the “experiential exercise” was to recreate “the voyage slaves went on across the Atlantic Ocean, on their way to the new world,” according to administrators at Whitney High School. For the activity, teachers acted as slave ship captains while students pretended to be slaves.

“The idea is for them to be uncomfortable and to feel mistreated, like a piece of property,” history teacher Kevin Harp wrote in an email sent Sept. 5 to parents, in advance of the activity. “However,” he continued, “please rest assured that your child will not be physically or emotionally hurt/harmed in any way.”

Harp told parents it provides a “powerful and meaningful” learning experience.

But one African American parent saw it differently, and forbade her eighth grade son from partaking in what she called a “demeaning and grossly insensitive” exercise.

“We live with the daily realities of being Black in America, and having our very existence challenged, hated and vilified,” Sharde Carrington wrote in response to the teacher’s email. “There is no need to revisit bondage when, still in 2017, the indelible mark left on society by slavery affects our lives daily. To attempt to recreate the experience is severely insensitive and begs lack of creativity.”

Carrington could not immediately be reached for comment Thursday.

A school counselor first reached out to Carrington and said a school administrator would be in touch soon.

In an emailed response to Carrington, Social Studies Department Chair Derek Jeans said the activity does not minimize the experience of slavery, but rather, it brings about a more personal understanding of a tragic historical event. Harp introduced the activity to the curriculum 10 years ago, based on a recommendation created in 1991 by the Teaching Curriculum Institute, according to a statement released Wednesday by the ABC Unified School District.

“While I agree with you that being black in this country currently is difficult for reasons that it should not be, I respectfully submit that this assignment is designed to immerse a student population that is not majority black, into the harrowing world that your ancestors suffered through so as to gain better insight into their plight,” he wrote.

The student population at Whitney, an academic preparatory school, is predominantly comprised of Asian students, with African Americans accounting for 2 percent of the approximately 1,000 students enrolled in grades 7-12. In 2016, Whitney High School was ranked 3rd in the state and 14th in the nation by U.S. News & World Report.

Carrington posted about the incident on Facebook, where she asked the community to weigh in. The social media post was picked up and written about by the Huffington Post in a Sept. 15 article, which prompted the district’s top administrators to address the issue.

On Monday morning, Whitney High School Principal John Briquelet informed staff in a meeting that the curriculum was dated, and the simulation was “no longer a fitting approach to instruction on the slavery topic,” according to a statement released by District Superintendent Mary Sieu on Wednesday.

In addition to removing the activity from the eighth grade history curriculum, Briquelet made wellness coordinators available to students to discuss issues and concerns they may have after participating, the statement read.

It is unclear what will replace the activity going forward, but it could be based on a new history-social science framework adopted by the California Department of Education in July 2016, according to the statement.

“The teachers will collaborate to design a better, more meaningful, and culturally proficient lesson on the sensitive topic of slavery in the United States,” Sieu said in the statement.

The district will adopt new textbooks and materials this year based on the new guidelines, she said.