A teacher has resigned after giving her teenage students a bizarre quiz posing disturbing ethical dilemmas involving topics such as incest and animal killing.
Sarah Gillam, 35, had been teaching English at Hilliard Bradley High School in Ohio since 2007 until she was suspended last week over the assignment she set for her sophomore Language Arts class.
The test, sourced from a website called IDRlabs.com, described provocative scenarios about sex and odd behaviour and asked students to determine which were acceptable and which were not.
Some of the more concerning scenarios included, "A man kills a baby rabbit with a knife on a live TV show"; "A brother and sister decide they want to sleep with each other — just once, to see what it would be like, but use a condom and the pill" and, "Sarah's dog has four puppies. She can only find a home for two of them, so she kills the other two with a stone to the head".
"The circumstances that led to the resignation are disappointing, as (Ms Gillam) has recognised," a Hillyard Board of Education spokesperson told The Dispatch.
"While the district's approved curriculum and educational materials encourage students to think critically, several items in this online quiz were simply inappropriate and inconsistent with established classroom resources," the school board said in a written statement. "This should never have been given.
"The district works hard to earn the respect and support of students, parents and the community at-large and we regret any mistrust this may have caused."
Ms Gillam was placed on indefinite paid leave on Thursday last week after district supervisors were alerted to the test via a Facebook post from parent Todd Sandberg, who had a student in her class.
Mr Sandberg told The Dispatch he decided to write a Facebook post about the quiz after his teenage son came home from school last Wednesday and started discussing the controversial content.
"My job was to point it out," said Mr Sandberg. "It is clearly evident that it's out there in the public. The public eye is aware of it. I knew it was going to cause a firestorm."
He said he thought the quiz was more appropriate for university philosophy students than 15 and 16-year-olds in 10th grade.
IDRlabs.com also distributes quizzes that measure narcissism, feminism, level of agreement with President Donald Trump's statements and fascism.