After being charged with referring to a Muslim seventh-grader as a terrorist, a middle school teacher in Pennsylvania resigned.
The school district said in a statement on Tuesday that the teacher had offered her resignation, which had been accepted earlier this evening.
According to a press statement from the human rights organization Council on American-Islamic Relations, the incident is believed to have occurred at Harrisburg’s Central Dauphin Middle School on January 16 after the kid requested that the instructor switch seats.
According to CAIR, which identified the student as Palestinian Lebanese American, the teacher informed the student, “I do not negotiate with terrorists.”
At a press conference on Monday night, the boy’s father, Adam Rahman, stated that although his son is doing well, the experience will never leave his mind and he will wonder whether the next instructor will say the same thing.
Rahman remarked that he felt as though the room was spinning and that no one was there to assist him. These educators are meant to be your role models and mentors; if that doesn’t work, there’s nothing else to do.
During an after-school event at the middle school, the teacher allegedly made a disparaging remark to the youngster, according to the Central Dauphin School District. The educator was not identified.
“Any incident of this nature” violates the district’s values and the rules established for employees, the district stated on Tuesday.
“The school district s mission is to give every student a strong academic foundation and also nurture and celebrate the many cultures and ethnicities of our students and staff,” read the statement.
Rahman claimed that although his family had previously encountered warning signs in the school district, this was the decisive moment.
“I have to go to the school and confront this when teachers say it,” he stated.
Rahman advocated for increased geopolitical education in the district to provide pupils a better understanding of diverse cultures, particularly in the Middle East.
At Monday’s news conference, community leaders called for anti-bias training and curriculum as well as cultural sensitivity.
According to a statement from the Harrisburg Palestine Coalition, the teacher’s “deeply embedded racism” might have been exacerbated by “exposure to misinformation and war propaganda by mainstream news coverage of Palestine.”
“Central Dauphin School District must do more to ensure that education on Palestine is correctly taught in its classrooms,” the group stated.
The Rahman family, the Harrisburg Palestine Coalition, and CAIR’s Philadelphia branch issued a joint statement on Tuesday expressing their gratitude for the teacher’s resignation. However, they questioned whether the Central Dauphin School District would make a commitment to teach its employees “on Muslim inclusion and equity” and “the full historic context of Palestine.”
The statement said, “We are happy that this teacher will no longer be able to endanger the community of Central Dauphin School District.” “But she should face consequences for the harm she created to our 7th grader.”