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| Home Front: Culture Wars |
| SCSU student leaves training at Technical High School |
| 2008-05-12 |
| Read on to discover why, because it's buried about 1/2 way down ... A St. Cloud State University student in a teacher-training program at Technical High School left the school in late April because he says he feared for the safety of his service dog. The school district calls it a misunderstanding, and officials there say they hoped Tyler Hurd, a 23-year-old junior from Mahtomedi who aspires to teach special education, would continue his training in the district. Hurd said a student threatened to kill his service dog named Emmitt. The black lab is trained to protect Hurd when he has seizures. The seizures, which can occur weekly, are from a childhood injury. The dog has a pouch on his side that assists those who stop to help Hurd. Hurd said he was unable to finish his 50 hours of field training at Tech. The university waived the remaining 10 hours, he said. He plans to do his student teaching outside a high school setting.“We came up with a solution because I felt threatened by it," Hurd said. The school district and university are working to make sure a similar situation doesn't happen. Kate Steffens, dean of the college of education at St. Cloud State, and Tech assistant principal Lori Lockhart met Thursday. And the "misunderstanding"? The threat came from a Somali student who is Muslim, according to Hurd, St. Cloud State and school district officials. The Muslim faith, which is the dominant faith of Somali immigrants, forbids the touching of dogs. Hurd trained at Talahi Community School and Tech. He said his experience at Talahi was good. The Somali students there warmed to the dog and eventually petted him using paper to keep their hands off his fur, Hurd said. Things didn't go as well at Tech, Hurd said. Students there taunted his dog, and he finally felt he had to leave after he was told a student made a threat. Hurd met with Lockhart but said he did not feel comfortable continuing. Julia Espe, director of curriculum, instruction and assessment for St. Cloud school district, said the school needed to do a better job communicating. “I think it was a misunderstanding where we didn't really prepare either side for possible implications," Espe said. Espe said the school's investigation determined the student did not make a direct threat. “We certainly welcome (Hurd) in our district, and we hope we can get this all resolved so he feels welcome and his dog is welcome," Espe said. Yes. Let's just forget the whole thing... Steffens said it is important to respect different cultures and the rights of disabled students. “I think this is part of the growth process when we become more diverse," Steffens said. Steffens called Hurd a good student and committed young man. But in the interest of "diversity", I'll guess he'll have to leave. Can't have our Somali students having to put up with FILTHY INFIDEL BEASTS! Gary Loch, who is the diversity coordinator for the district, said the situation was an unfortunate case of miscommunication. “I'm not quite sure where the breakdown comes into play here," Loch said. Maybe about the time where the Somali Muslim threatened to kill the dog? |
| Posted by:tu3031 |
| #3 At some point, the majority is going to have to tell the supercilious pansies that populate the PC police that it really doesn't care about diversity and that what they say is beyond strange, it is just wrong. The whole concept of "diversity" has been perverted into an attack on the culture that has provided the wealth and security that lets these parasites exist. Without America, and yes, without white, male, Christian America, these twits would be lined up against a wall and shot by their new "diverse" masters. |
| Posted by: RWV 2008-05-12 16:26 |
| #2 I would think making a threat like that, direct or not, would be grounds for immediate dismissal. I sure as hell know it would be for me if I told some damned turban I was going to kill his goat. |
| Posted by: bigjim-ky 2008-05-12 14:49 |
| #1 That diversity coordinator is dealing with his cognative dissonance by denial. This whole multi-culti BS falls apart when you consider the question "How do you tolerate the intolerant". This is not new. 30 years ago the big push at DEC was "Valuing Differences". Anyone with half a brain immediately asked "But what if the difference has no value?" After that they moved on to New Age Thinking..... Now we have Muzzie fanatics dictating how WE should live. Tell this scumb to get his ass back to Somalia if he likes those rules so much. |
| Posted by: AlanC 2008-05-12 14:39 |