Thursday August 27, 2015
Al Johnson, assistant principal of the McKinley Area Learning Center, met with members of a student advocacy team formed last spring on July 14, 2015. The team, made up of mostly Somali students, has several proposals for how to cut down on harassment and discrimination at Tech High School. source mpr news
ST. CLOUD, Minnesota — St. Cloud Technical High School has been scrambling to address criticism from some Somali students who say they've been harassed over their race and religion.The school district has hired 11 new staffers, all but one of whom speaks Somali, to fill the recently created communications support specialist positions in which they're intended to act as liaisons between the administration, students and their families. St. Cloud school officials also plan to provide additional cultural awareness training to teachers and add leadership groups to give students more of a voice, Minnesota Public Radio News (http://bit.ly/1Ehtuky ) reported.In March, about 100 students walked out of St. Cloud Technical High School after a photo circulated of a Somali girl labeled as a member of the Islamic State group.
"It was just a lot of pent-up frustration," said Naima Mohamed, 14, who will be a sophomore at the school when classes begin next week. "People kept how they felt inside and the things that they were going through ... they wouldn't go and talk to someone about it."
Many of the school's Somali students don't feel comfortable approaching school staff with their problems, according to Mohamed, who's a member of the Student Advocacy Group, which was formed last spring after the walkout and has since made several proposals to the school board.
"There's some staff members that aren't willing to say, 'Hey, that's wrong, you shouldn't say that or do that,'" she said. "I don't think we're going to get anywhere if we don't get the staff members on board."
St. Cloud Area Schools Superintendent Willie Jett said he realizes this is a problem at the high school and he wants to address the students' concerns.
"I want kids to feel good about going to school. I want the students and the families and the parents and the community to trust us and to feel that our schools are the place to be," Jett said.
Somali students account for about 20 percent of St. Cloud Technical High School's population.