Excerpt:
Students flooding the halls of Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy in Inver Grove Heights each morning meet welcome signs in English and Arabic.
The signs symbolize the public school's purpose: to integrate its mostly immigrant Muslim student population into American culture.
Outside the school, that idea has been lost in an uproar of controversy since Star Tribune columnist Katherine Kersten triggered a state investigation of the school this spring by airing a substitute teacher's allegations that school officials mixed the roles of religion and public education.
Hate mail began arriving at the school. The school's director said he received death threats via e-mail.
On TV stations, radio shows and Web logs — locally and across the nation — critics accused the charter school of crossing the line between church and state. One morning, with the media attention seemingly at a fever pitch, school officials wrestled with a KSTP-TV cameraman.
What's been missing from the discussion is what the school is like inside and how the hundreds of students who attend — and their parents — are faring amid the controversy.