Muslim family who accused school of discrimination denied petitions

On Wednesday, a judge denied both petitions made by the family of the student who claims she was harassed by employees at the Crane Middle School.

Crane Elementary School District employees and the family testified on the stand and said they are now taking all necessary actions to make sure this never happens again.

The student’s testimony in court began with several verbal confrontations she claims she witnessed during her time as an office runner for the school. Some of those allegations include being stared down while walking the halls of the school, being told she has failed as a student, and being marked as late when she claimed she was not.

Based on the evidence provided to the court, the judge did agree that one of the allegations where the student claims she was told she failed as a student was valid. However, the judge said they needed to find two valid incidents of harassment for the employees but it didn’t happen.

Therefore, he deemed the rest of the allegations invalid.

Public Relations Coordinator, Mario Hogue, said that the district is 100 percent certain that no employees violated any laws.

“Our employees have not broken any civil rights student related laws,” said Hogue.

He also said that the district immediately started investigating the allegations.

“As a district, we take any complaint of any nature very seriously and we followed a standard process,” Hogue added.

Hogue said that conversations are already in the works to better handle these situations with families and students.

“We want to do more in-depth training with all employees and staff as to how we can handle tough conversations and how do we handle interactions with students,” said Hogue.

News 11 reached out to the family but they did not want to speak with us.

The family has a right to appeal in court.