(CNN) An elementary school in Washington, D.C. is apologizing after a lesson in which fifth grade students of color were asked to portray enslaved people.

In a letter sent to families of students at Lafayette Elementary School, Principal Carrie Broquard called the assignment a mistake, saying that students "should not have been tasked with acting out or portraying different perspectives of enslavement and war."

"At Lafayette, we believe in the importance of teaching painful history with sensitivity and social awareness," Broquard wrote in the letter, dated December 23. "Unfortunately we fell short of those values in a recent 5th grade lesson."

Fifth graders at the school had been studying the Civil War and Reconstruction in recent weeks, Broquard wrote. The students started the unit by reading an article titled "A Nation Divided." The teaching team had students further engage with the material by having them either put on a dramatic reading, create a living picture or create a podcast in small groups, according to a separate letter addressed to families of fifth graders from the school's fifth grade teaching team.

Some students of color were asked by their peers to play roles that are "inappropriate and harmful," including "a person of color drinking from a segregated water fountain and an enslaved person," the team wrote.

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