Around 60 St. Paul students walked out of class Monday, April 25 to support a teacher known to be an advocate for students of color, who is losing her job for “ineffective” instruction.

Open World Learning Community students carried signs and chanted “equality and justice for all” as they started  off on a two-mile march to Rice Park soon after 10 a.m. Monday, April 15.  Their aim was to reverse their principal’s decision to dismiss the social studies teacher Sarah Dickhausen, or at least to bring attention to the school’s poor way of treating minorities. “The entire time I’ve been here, there has not been a teacher who’s stood up for me like Sarah,” said eighth-grader Ed Diatta, who is African American.

Dickhausen told students Friday that her contract was being terminated for ineffective instruction. Dozens of students soon went to meet with Principal David Gundale, but were left unsatisfied with his explanation as of why her contract was terminated.

With the students preparing to protest, Gundale emailed families Saturday to say he couldn’t discuss the teacher’s employment because of privacy laws. Students would not be disciplined for protesting, he said, but they would receive an unexcused absence, and would not be allowed to return to school Monday or to ride school buses back home.

In the email Dickhausen wrote to families Sunday, in the letter, Dickhausen  brought up concerns about racial tensions at the school to Gundale in December but received no response. Then she found out she had received a inadequate rating on her performance evaluation. “It was clear to me that I had touched on a subject that was off-limits or that was not ready to be dealt with,” she said.

She was first hired in 2013, by SPPS, to teach adults at St. Paul Public Schools’ Hubbs Center. She also taught at Harding for a year but due to financial cuts she was cut from her position and she elected to transfer to OWL.

In the letter she wrote she said, “I blame myself for not being able to find the balance in teaching to my students and being supportive to my students. I am one person and I was taking on more than I could handle, and I see now that it has contributed to the loss of my career in SPPS and the loss of a beloved teacher to many of my students.”

Several students and parents complained Monday of low expectations for OWL’s students of color. Lanaya DeRungs, a mother who has a daughter at the school said, “Blacks feel alone in this school.”

Before the walkout Monday, a school district leader, and facilitators of OWL’s racial equity student group, also met with students to discuss Dickhausen’s dismissal and the environment at the school, a district representative said. Those conversations will continue in the coming weeks, she added.

Hamdi Ali Osman is a women who lost the last six years of her freedom and four of them were spent in prison. Now, she has filed a lawsuit alleging that a St. Paul police officer’s lies put her in prison. Osman, 26, is asking for 2 million dollars for each year she spent in custody, including the 2 years she was in pretrial detention, for a total of 12 million dollars in damages.

Osman was only one of 30 other people charged in a major federal sex-trafficking case that allegedly involved juvenile victims and stretched from the Twin Cities to Nashville, Tenn. Last month, a federal appeals court reviewed the handling of the case by police, and then prosecutors dismissed charges against Osman and the others that were arrested.

What the appeals court found was that St. Paul police Sgt. Heather Weyker, “exaggerated or fabricated important aspects” of an alleged victim’s story, and that she lied to a grand jury and later during a detention hearing, according to the finding filed on March 2nd.

Osman, said that in jail she and other inmates spent 23 hours a day locked in their cells. She’d been there for four years and on home arrest for two years.

Osman is from Somalia. She moved to the United States when she was 2 and is a permanent resident like most of the others that were arrested.

Osman grew up in South Minneapolis and, after high school, headed to Nashville in 2008 to live with friends. During this time, she received a call from a juvenile she knew from the Somali community in Minneapolis. This girl said she was coming to stay with Osman in Nashville. Osman told her she couldn’t stay with her, but she would let her stay until her mother came to get her. The girl’s mother went to get her the next day, the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit claims that “Weyker (the officer) knowingly and intentionally manipulated, defrauded, threatened, and pressured” the girl “into fabricating evidence and testimony that her visit to Nashville was solicited by Osman for the purpose of commercial sex. This was demonstrably false, and Weyker knew it.”

The lawsuit continued, stating, “Weyker also attempted to manipulate, threaten, pressure, defraud two other young females who knew Osman, to frame Osman as a ‘Madam,’ but these young women ultimately resisted … and told Weyker the truth: … that they were not … sex-trafficked, that Osman was in no way involved in any commercial sex-trafficking of minors. Weyker ignored this and other exculpatory evidence, and instead continued with her scheme.”

In 2010, Osman said she was working at Jennie-O in Willmar, Minnesota, when a large number of federal agents showed up and told her they had a warrant for her arrest in Tennessee.

“I thought it was a traffic ticket,” said Osman, speaking Thursday in St. Paul with her attorneys by her side — Irlbeck, Jeff Storms and Paul Applebaum. Little did she know it was the beginning of a six year ordeal. St. Paul police began an internal  investigation into Weyker on March 3rd, the day after the court’s finding was filed, and they placed her on paid administrative leave. On March 9th, Weyker returned to work and the department put the internal investigation on hold. The suit continued: “By the end of 2012, at the very latest, St. Paul, its police department, and Weyker’s supervisors were all aware of the of Weyker’s fabricated evidence in a case that made news headline after news headline.”

“Ms. Osman always knew the accusations against her were a lie but … she kept faith in way the criminal justice system functions,” Irlbeck said. “Of course, when you realize that one cop can tell a lie that takes six years of your life away, it starts to make you wonder whether that system really works for you. It took six years, but the system did work for her. And now this is the second half of the system working for her, the civil case.”

Ms. Osman has now returned to Minnesota and is currently living with her family in St.Paul. She’s been getting a custom to having freedom and is now looking for a job.

For more information about this story see: http://www.twincities.com/2016/04/07/st-paul-cop-sued-12-million-sex-trafficking-aquittal/

Recently there was an incident involving a St. Paul Public school, and the organization Black Lives Matter. What follows is the events connected to that incident.

Black Lives Matter is preparing to shut down Como Park Senior High School unless a teacher is fired for Facebook comments. Organizer Rashad Turner said the group met Friday, March 5, to plan its protest of Theo Olson, a special-education teacher at Como. In one post, Olson suggested Como is “enabling student misconduct” in a misguided attempt to keep students in school and out of the criminal justice system.

The screenshots/evidence on: http://www.twincities.com/2016/03/04/black-lives-matter-wants-to-shut-down-st-paul-school-over-teachers-facebook-posts/

show that Olson (the teacher) said, “Anyone care to explain to me the school-to-prison pipeline my colleagues and I have somehow created, or perpetuated, or not done enough to interrupt?” he wrote. “Because if you can’t prove it, and campaigns you’ve waged to deconstruct adult authority in my building by enabling student misconduct, you seriously owe us real teachers an apology. Actually, an apology won’t cut it.”

In Olson’s second post he talked about iPad and phone devices used for social media and gaming.“There have always been rules for ‘devices,’ and defined levels of misconduct. Since we now have no backup, no functional location to send kids who won’t quit gaming, setting up fights, selling drugs, whoring trains, or cyber bullying, we’re screwed, just designing our own classroom rules,” it continued.

Turner took Olson’s remarks as “sweeping generalizations about black students.” Turner said the teachers comments presented a perfect opportunity for the city’s Black Lives Matter chapter to turn its activism toward St. Paul Public Schools, which has far higher rates of suspensions for black and American Indian students than for their peers.

Olson went on to say that rather than putting students on a path to prison, he sees himself as “a link of the school to opportunity and freedom pipeline.” Olson offered to speak to Turner and explain his views but Turner had no desire to speak to Olson. Turner and his activists will meet with the school district leaders on the following Monday, March 7.

After meeting with the district leaders on Monday, Black Lives Matter St. Paul has called off plans to “shut down” Como Park Senior High, according to Superintendent Valeria Silva. Silva stated that their conversation was “productive and positive.” She also went on to say, “It is clear we share a common vision of high expectations and achievement for all students and ongoing commitment to racial equity,” finally to conclude she said “I am thankful that Mr. Turner has chosen to discontinue any immediate protests planned at Como Park Senior High School.” Turner choose to not comment on Monday, Olson who still will continue to teach at Como has also chosen to not comment on anything.

As of Thursday, March 17, Olson is on a paid administrative leave.

During one of the most important days of political campaigning for the upcoming presidential election, known as “Super Tuesday”, Minnesota voters proved once again that they are quite different politically than many other states. During caucus night we experienced lines from high schools and churches spread into the streets, and the amount of people coming out to caucus was shattered. This night was one of the biggest political days in recent history for Minnesota. In 2008, the number of Republican voters that attended the caucus was around 62,000. That record was shattered into a billion pieces as that number increased to 115,000, nearly doubling in size! With Democratic voters experiencing the same numbers it isn’t a surprise that voting lines were so long.

But let’s get to what was most important, the results. Minnesota voters proved that they are not big supporters of the front running candidates. On the Democratic side of things there were really only two possible candidates you could cast your vote for, Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton. After it was all said and done, there was no question about it, Bernie Sanders was able to take Minnesota with 63% of the votes, which was a huge win for his campaign. During Super Tuesday Sanders was also able to capture wins in Colorado, Oklahoma, and Vermont. Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton was able to claim more victories as she won in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia. Currently Clinton is leading Sanders in the delegate count and the upcoming states like California will be vital if Sanders wants a chance at the Democratic nomination.

With a record Republican turnout this year, you would think that a large portion of that crowd would be new incoming voters who have had their eyes opened by Donald Trump, however that most certainly was not the case. Republican voters did not show Trump the amount of love that they have in many other states. Here, Marco Rubio took the crown with 36% of the votes, with Ted Cruz coming in second with 29%, and finally Trump third with 21%. Minnesota would be the only state that Rubio would claim on Super Tuesday, as Trump and Cruz would take the wins in all the others. Donald Trump is currently leading the Republicans with 460 delegates, while Cruz is in second with 370, and Rubio in third with 163. Just like the Democrats, the Republican party will rely on the upcoming states to really determine who will get that nomination.

On Wednesday February 10, St. Paul Youth Services (SPYS) hosted an event at the Sun Ray library for finding the next St. Paul Police chief. Mayor Chris Coleman and City Council member Russ Stark attended. SPYS wanted to hear youth voices on how the police affect our community.

We talked about how police officers influence our everyday lives. You can find a police officer in most SPPS high schools. At Highland Park Senior High School we have Officer Hull. In a country that has one of the highest incarceration rates in the world, does our discipline on teens have to be linked to police officers?

The school to prison pipeline has been a growing topic in the media. The school to prison pipeline is a term that refers to pushing at risk schoolchildren, who are predominantly people of color, into the criminal justice system. There have been studies that have shown the link between students that are suspended to their committing future law violations.

What is most disappointing is how small the ethnic population is in Minnesota schools, compared to their suspension and high school drop out rates. For example, nearly 60% of suspensions in Minnesota were from black, Asian, Native American, and Hispanic students, but they only make up a quarter of the population of the schools. 

SPYS is trying to help us learn that the school to prison pipeline is a real and urgent issue. We should be using our law enforcement to help and protect youth instead of making it difficult to get an education.

St Paul Youth Services was founded in 1973, and provides many services, including the Pre-Court Diversion Program, which helps young adults that committed petty theft offenses like shoplifting and curfew violation have other alternatives to help them stay out of the criminal justice system. Another service they provide to young adults is the Ambassadors for Youth program, which provides counseling and tutoring in community centers.

Over the past week, you may have noticed some spontaneous road closures and a large motorcade and helicopters whizzing through the air constantly. This is because Vice-President Joe Biden made a stop in St. Paul, the final of 3 city visits throughout the country.

The Vice-President’s main stop, while visiting St. Paul, was at the Union Depot, which received over $35 million in economic stimulus money for its renovation in 2009. That money came from the Economic Recovery Act, a federal program that invested in infrastructure and renewable energy sources, and its primary objective was to save and create jobs immediately. Other financial areas of concern that were addressed in this plan were health care, education, and expansion of unemployment benefits.

Biden’s goal during this brief tour was to remind people what the economic climate was like back in 2009, and why he says the economic stimulus package was a great benefit for the country and its people. He stated how projects like the Union Depot renovation helped spark many other jobs of the same sort, which in turn helped in pulling our country out of its worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

Mayor Chris Coleman also chimed in about the benefits of the stimulus:  “When you look at the success of downtown St. Paul, and you look at that partnership that we’ve had both on the state level and the national level, that much of the growth that we’re seeing in downtown is directly attributable to that support.”