He was only trying to be kind to a homeless man.
That, according to the former campus president of a Kansas City trade school, is what led to him being fired, while offering a homeless man shelter from cold weather.
Brian Carroll, campus president at Vatterott College in Kansas City for five years, says one of his students had no place to go. On Friday, January 6th, he allowed a student, who is homeless and schizophrenic, to sleep overnight in the school’s library. The school fired him on Monday, January 9th, the next business day.
“Education is a beautiful thing to me,” Carroll told FOX 4 News. “But sometimes, it gets destroyed in the process.”
The recorded overnight temperatures outside Vatterott College on January 6th hit four degrees below zero. Carroll says that student had been sleeping in a wooded area near the school, but temperatures were too harsh that night, and the student had nowhere to seek warmth.
“I just didn’t want to take the chance,” Carroll said. “We had ice and snow.”
The Kansas City newspaper adds:
Similar circumstances cost Prairie Village City Councilman David Morrison his elected post in 2012, though he was later reinstated by the Kansas Court of Appeals. Morrison had allowed a homeless friend to spend a few nights at City Hall.
“I made a mistake,” Morrison said Tuesday. “I think I did the right thing but the wrong way.”
Paul Ferrise, Vatterott’s regional vice president, said Tuesday that Carroll had made a “bad decision” in allowing the student to stay overnight on school property.
Ferrise acknowledged Carroll was out of a job but declined to address Carroll’s version of what happened, citing limits in matters of personnel.
“We’re going to protect his right to privacy and confidentiality,” Ferrise said.
Ferrise said the school’s focus is on its students and their success, but Carroll had other choices, better choices, that night. He might have helped the student find a local shelter, for example.
“Mr. Carroll had a range of options available to him to help the student. He made a bad decision,” Ferrise said.
