Family: Ahmed withdraws from Irving ISD, eyes trips to United Nations and Mecca

[TexasTowelie]

IRVING -- This afternoon—while Ahmed Mohamed was enjoying California at Google’s invitation—his father drove to Irving ISD’s headquarters and formally withdrew the teen from the school district that inadvertently made him famous.

Not only is Ahmed leaving the district, a week after his English teacher reported his homemade clock to police, but his younger brother and sister are pulling out of other IISD schools, according to the father, Mohamed Elhassan Mohamed.

“Ahmed said, I don’t want to go to MacArthur,” Mohamed told me. “These kids aren’t going to be happy there.”

Mohamed was struggling with what to do next. At the moment, his family is spread out across two states—with invitations to at least all 50 of them since the tech nerd’s trip to juvenile detention made him a hero to many across the world.

Read more: http://irvingblog.dallasnews.com/2015/09/family-ahmed-withdraws-from-irving-isd-eyes-trips-to-new-york-and-mecca.html/

[immoderate]

1. So, I'm wondering, what the fuck does that clock do?

I mean, the kid seems nice enough, but what does that fucking clock do? Predict the time in the future? Slow down the passage of time? Show you the back of your head? Get you to the church...

--imm

[Jamastiene]

3. The clock says it is time for schools to start using some common sense and

stop with the zero tolerance policies that cause international embarrassment and shame like this...for starters. Maybe, it also says it is time for America to appreciate inventors instead of ignoring inventors in favor of bouncy the ball players.

[spanone]

4. this is what it does:

it tells time too.

[6chars]

7. some pretty high powered engineers seem impressed

so there's that

[Matariki]

8. Probably more in sympathy with a fellow geek

From what I've read the clock wasn't particularly special. Just a curious and smart kid developing along a science/engineering path.

[immoderate]

9. That was my impression. It's a science fair volcano.

Just wondering if MIT knew something I didn't.

--imm

[GummyBearz]

12. They knew how to get their name out there with some good press attached to it

The PR people at the tech companies must have loved this story, it practically did their job for them for 2 weeks.

[madaboutharry]

2. What about school?

I get he doesn't want to go back to the same school, but I don't get that he hasn't been enrolled elsewhere.

[TexasTowelie]

6. They are also removing their other children from the school district.

I think that the most likely options are Hurst-Euless-Bedford or Grapevine since both districts have some Muslims attending their schools. The other districts nearby are Coppell (primarily well-off white students), Farmers Branch (racial tensions there) and Dallas (poorly rated schools).

I suspect that they will keep all of the children out of school for at least this semester to let thing settle down.

[backscatter712]

5. Well who can blame him? Irving, Texass is a fucking shithole.

Filled with bigoted scumbags, like the ones that arrested Ahmed.

If I were a Muslim, I'd get the fuck out of there too. There are much nicer places in the country where the bigotry's turned down quite a bit.

[oberliner]

10. That's not a very nice thing to say

Seems unfair to characterize a whole city that way.

[moondust]

11. There are always exceptions, but...

voters there apparently elected this person:

Mayor Of City Where Muslim Teen Was Wrongly Arrested Is Anti-Sharia Crusader