Saratoga High School parent Michelle King is speaking out after her daughter was assigned a survey, intended on teaching teens about empathy. 

“How did it get into the school, and how did the principal say it was acceptable?" King asked.

King says she is was disbelief over the incident.

“I did think it was a joke, kinda threw it out there to friends of mine, they even thought it was a joke," King said.

It was just last week when she says her daughter’s teacher at Saratoga Springs High School asked her class to fill out the contested survey on "privilege."

The premise was simple and had students choose what features matched their own, before adding up the points.

"Absolutely offensive and appalling. [There were] words on here that [said] if you’re retarded to subtract two hundred points," King said.

If you’re transsexual, the survey asked you to subtract another 500. Blind? Minus 750.

“I cannot comprehend as a parent whose daughter handed this, how anyone could say this was acceptable," King said.

To get the highest point total possible you had to have certain features like being white, male, straight, or Jewish.

Spectrum News reached out to the school principal’s office, and was told to contact the district spokesperson.

The district released a statement reading in part:

“An unmodified version of the privilege reflection form was distributed to students without the removal of insensitive words. The district does not condone the use of the document with these insensitive words.”

King says she still requires something more. 

“I don’t want the teacher fired, what I’m looking at is how the teacher could have approved this?" King asked.

King says she talked to principal Michelle Tsao, who told King the survey was meant to be a lesson in empathy.

Not all were opposed to the survey according to The Daily Gazette. They say Facebook comments regarding the survey had some supporters. 

“It should make Saratoga school students uncomfortable,” one Facebook user wrote, says the Gazette. “It is a wake up call that not everyone has equal access.”

The Daily Gazette also spoke with Catherine Snyder, director of the Clarkson University teachers education program in Schenectady. Snyder says such topics can easily become "personal," and a push towards understanding is what schools should advocate for.

"We’ve challenged ourselves as a profession to take a big leap from tolerance to genuine understanding. [Educators] are trying to get students to understand that people do think differently and it’s your job as an individual to understand people have different points of view… Kids need to start to be more understanding, and that’s not going to happen unless teachers are purposefully teaching in that direction," Snyder said to The Daily Gazette.