Sister Umm Ziad, Please come to Connecticut with ALL the Muslim Teens you can!

A’uthubillahi minash shaytan irRajeem, bismillahi arRahman arRaheem.

First and foremost, with ALL due respect to All my colleagues of Islamic Schools in America and the West (Administrators, Principals, Heads, etc.), I have colleagues with graduate-level theses and dissertations supporting the unfortunate, overall status of the Islamic Schools in America to back up my claims. Yet, Sister Umm Ziad’s personal blog post (given her wealth of professional and personal experience) speaks directly to our poor state as one valid case study very pointedly. Please forgive me, if you take offense by anything written. My prayers are that you, too, Work outside-the-box, and NOT take anything handed to you for the sake of the “school”, it should be for the sake of “education of our ummah”.

 

BTW, I’m writing this here and not on the Academy blog, because I need to be “Ponn” right now, and not Sr. Ponn (Head Administrator of SKF Academy). I am a homeschooling mom of 3 girls-turned into Administrator for an Academy opening this Fall that is unlike any other program offered anywhere in the country…and world (from what our research shows), insha’Allah. Yar Rabb

My dear Sister Sunni Sister, Come to CT please! Come one and all, anyone and everyone who believes verbatim every single heart-breaking, logically-written, frustrated-from-the-core-emotionally-torn Brother, Sister and most of all: Our Muslim Teens!

Due to time, I can not go tit-for-tat on every single point detailed so eloquently; but here’s my Top 7 List.

I’m limited myself with time, as I know I probably can write a Top-99 List WHY Salma K Farid Academy is positioned to be the Ideal Islamic Educational Model here in the US.

In no particular order:

1. Salma K Farid Academy WILL be, insha’Allah,

innovative, creative, unschooling-ish, eclectic. A place where teens would feel that they wanted to learn, where their minds weren’t being stifled, where teachers weren’t panicking about “teaching to the tests.” No boring blue jilbabs / white hijabs and polyester dress slacks. A dress code, but not a uniform. Where the board and administrators weren’t timidly reassuring everyone at every point that “we follow the same curriculum as the public school that you didn’t want to send your kids to in the first place because we’re mainstream and moderate!” My school won’t be mainstream. Instead of a school chorus, we’d have a school daf and nasheeds corps

• We are so NOT mainstream’ that NO where in our marketing, presentations or promotions will you see that we are a “school”.
• “We are a Unique Islamic Learning Center and Daycare/Early Childhood Center for Young Children”.
• Bear with me please, while we’re serving 3-12 year olds during the day, and up to 18 years in our after-school, and adults in the evening this year-IF you and/or others come we WILL open one-girls’ class of seven-ten 13-18 year olds; insha’Allah, next year.
• Hee, hee. I too, am SO against uniforms, but dress code is necessary.
• I’ll talk about our programming briefly below.

2. Salma K Farid Academy WILL be, insha’Allah, an academy

…that serve our teens, and then on top of it, we don’t have programs for them except for the Islamic weekend schools that many parents dread and most of the kids laugh at. Giving credit where it is due, it seems like MAS (at least in Boston) is one of the only organizations interested in doing anything for teens other than after school Qur’an & weekend Islamic school. Yes, those things are important. But so is scouting, so are outings, so is providing any way for our teens to get together and hang without the mullah peering over their shoulder.

• LOOK at our after-school program here!
• Masha’Allah, alhumdulilah Rabbil alameen, hubby and I have been able to give our daughters the most ideal Muslim-life here in America based on Qu’ran and Sunnah, and I would NOT being doing our ummah ANY justice by “selling-myself-out” for the sake of a “school” by NOT giving every single child at least the opportunities afforded our children.
• For example, based on Sunnah: horseback riding, swimming and archery/air rifle
• My dream was to establish MY-C (Muslim Youth Center) equivalent and better in our unique services to YMCA and JCC, isha’Allah. The Farids are helping to make this dream come true because their daughters as well as ours NEED it–so we’re designing/developing our MY-C Lounge right now!
• But, just like in the day program–there are things that are obligatory. Hence the “hard-stuff” come first, and then the fun! So, core and Qur’an, Arabic as a Second Language, Islamic Studies must be completed before you get the well-deserve break and fun!
• We already have solidified Indoor Track, Confidential Mentoring for boys and girls and much more!

3. At Salma K Farid Academy you will NOT see, insha’Allah, any of this hypocritical, ironic, highly-nonsensical, I wanna-slap-myself-silly-by-this-backwardness thinking below!

A lot of Islamic school administrators will say, “Hey, we’d um, like to expand to 12th grade, but we don’t have enough money to pay our staff as it is.” In many cases, this is true. Islamic schools often suffer from chronic underfunding. Our community brags and brags about how we are supposedly a very high income people, how we have a higher salary on average than the average American, how highly educated we are. Yet our schools can’t afford to serve the middle class and poor because they often do not receive enough funding to disburse any financial aid.

…You know something else I noticed on the websites of all these beautiful yet snooty private schools? Right there, on their tuition pages, they would proudly proclaim how many millions of dollars they had disbursed in financial aid the year before. Millions. Some of these schools only have 500 students at the most. Do you know why they’re able to give away 1.2 or 2.4 or (in one case) 6 million in financial aid each year? Because the parents, the community, and their alumni care. They hustle and bustle and raise funds like crazy. It’s not just alumni who give, it’s other people in the city or across the country who respond to the fundraising materials and give because they feel strongly about all-girls private education, or the tradition of Quaker education, and so forth.

• A VERY wise, probably the youngest of all applicants pointedly stated, “If just once we produced a high school Muslim graduate for Yale University (or other Ivy League School), we’d NEVER have to fund raise!–Here here!
• No, my hubby nor I graduated from an Ivy–but, the point is: why chase after pennies here and there, but we MUST invest in the children’s education: Staffing and curriculum.
• We have a unique business-model that we know we’re debuting in the country, and insha’Allah Toefeek. Please make du’a for us. It’s logical, simplistic, and NOT based on student enrollment and donations.
• La ilallaha ilallah, Muhammadan Rasullah. Collectively the ~250 Islamic Schools in our country are FAILING our children by NOT giving them academically-competitive kids NOR creating ideal Islamic environments preparing them to be competitive spiritually. [Too many references that insha'Allah, please give me time to compile my factual statement.] We’re on 2-ends of the spectrum: We’re assimilating our children (adapting all “secular” curriculum or practices) or isolating our children (only doing Hifz, hiabs at 4 year-olds, we-don’t-do-anything-with-non-Muslim-self-segregation)…and in BOTH cases, I’ve personally witnessed TOO many Teens RUN & Sprint from the very deen and dunya they were “taught”.
• At Salma K Farid Academy, we have NOT asked for money, and now that our tuition is up, insha’Allah, Sunni Sister please correct me if I’m wrong but,

4. At Salma K Farid Academy our website does NOT portray the pit-burning issues you bring up below, insha’Allah

I’m just not sure why I’m supposed to turn over $6000 of my hard earned money to a school that can’t make a website, and can’t keep their site safe from hackers. I logged on to the site of one NY Islamic school today and was immediately hit with spyware and all sorts of junk. 4 hours later, I’ve managed to clean it up. Some sites haven’t been updated since 2004. I’ve been to Islamic school websites riddled with poor English — spelling, grammar, syntax, punctuation. I’m supposed to trust my childrens’ education to you? And you want $6000 from me?

I went to a few other sites and not only could I not get any tuition information out of the site, but I couldn’t even figure out what grades they served. Hey people, this is basic information. Don’t give me the “you’ll have to call when we’re open” song and dance. You have a website, put it up there. I’m a busy person, and I don’t have time for this. I don’t have time to spend calling and contacting a school in the middle of summer only to find out it only goes up to 4th grade.

So I have to winnow through grade availability, location, cost, quality, and philosophy. I have come up with almost nothing.

• I confess, I had to add the line of the exact ages of our Academy. Jazaka Allahu Khayrun sister; but, our opening line stating, “early childhood and elementary learning center” should have clued anyone into at least PreK-6th grade. But, I made a point to show the ages served in our after-school and evening programs.

5. At Salma K Farid Academy our website DOES portray the following, insha’Allah, right?

 

As a comparison, I visited the websites of many private secular schools in Massachusetts. The quality of the websites was up to date. The layout was logical and intuitive. All of the pertinent information was there. The photographs were clear, the graphics were made to fit the page. The children are shown engaging in activities, learning, looking interested. Of course after looking through the sites of all these schools, I actually said, “Well, Quakers aren’t so bad. Let’s see what the tuition is– ack!”

• I didn’t take the pictures at our Open House, and while I said “take everything”, he thought it was every single room. Rather than capturing the wonderful dialogue between staff and kids, the smiles and giggle around the lollipop basket, the dads laughing up a roar and sisters chit-chatting in grand pleasure; it was my fault for not specifying what “everything” was. After all, it was the very first “Open House/Walk-Through” and the facility was our main attraction. So, we learn from our mistakes, and Khir, insha’Allah, for our next event.
• YES, we DID invest some dollars on our website, and we ARE mimicking the successful private independent day and boarding schools here in CT (the best in the country–yes; Ode the pleasure of being back here in the NorthEast)–but, we have Grand visions in positioning ourselves with this site so it’s worth the investment. BUT, it’s NOT as much as the private schools are paying, at least not yet; insha’Allah

6. At Salma K Farid Academy we WILL start with our Girls-Only middle-high school, insha’Allah. BTW, your statements really HIT home with me Sistah!

That brings me to another point. How come there are no Islamic girls’ schools except one in NJ that may still exist and one in Canada? I found all sorts of Christian, Jewish, and secular private schools that catered only to girls or boys — some of them very well regarded schools, such as Roxbury Latin. Yet Muslims seem afraid to do this because we think people might believe we are oppressing our girls. No! We would be providing them with an academically challenging, supportive environment, just like Westover or Brearly, or Spence. Why can’t we do it?

• First, I have 3 daughters, one owner has 4 and the other owner has 2…but, that’s not the logical reasons why.
• For example, we can pull a Certified middle-high school Sister from the public schools more easily than the brothers. While we can compete for salary, we can’t compete with the benefits; so it’s easier to start with one pilot class, bust ALL barriers, then brothers (needing the security of his salary & benefits) will Jump up at the opportunity to make a Boys class!
• Basically, we can NOT mess up in High School! Not have we “can” with elementary years either …we just have more time to clean up the mess HA–Just kidding!
• It’s our obligation to give our Muslim Teens ONLY the very best and make sure we give them ALL that they need: spiritually, academically, physically, emotionally, socially, etc.
• We MUST give them BETTER than what they have right now–which is basically we don’t have that far to go up, when Our Administrators can say,

I heard an administrator say that Muslim teens are “problematic.”

We failed them, and now WE (parents and administrators) can make such statements like this! Poo-pooey on us!

7. Salma K Farid Academy IS responding to your call:

If you are interested, let me know. I don’t know anything about teaching, and I know nothing about starting a school.

• Alhumdulilah, we DO know about schools and how to start one (me-educationally, and the Farids-businesswise).
• Hubby and I have been homeschooling for 8 years, traveled all around the world (with our girls)(and visited schools in as many countries as possible), we came back to CT this fall opening with hopes to open a Charter School family similar to the highly-successful Arabic as a Second Language program GEE Program, combined with technology such as the Ohio Virtual Academy (CT law will not allow virtual academy),local successful charter schools like Achievement First, [I even had our outline written out to apply with the Dept. of Education in CT for charter school...but, you can not put religion in], and taking the very best from the top private schools not limited to Independent Day School, Hamden Hall, Cheshire Academy, a hand-full of Catholic, Christian and Jewish schools, Montessori early childhood centers, and Play-to-Learn philosophies, AND at our core: Qur’an and Sunnah of our beloved Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him)…a year’s worth of research on case studies and theories, and Subhanallah, The Farid brothers and I met!
• So for your closing remarks:

I can’t afford the cool private schools where everyone is eclectic and bougie and diverse. I don’t know why it’s too much to ask that my community support my child. I don’t know why a non-teacher, non-fundraising person like myself should even get to the point of thinking of starting my own school, just so my child and all the other Muslim kids her age whose parents want them grounded in Islam and Muslimness have a place to call home.

• It is NOT too much to ask. Surprised why Muslims are stingy with their money here in CT (compared to OH and MI, where I lived for the past 5 years); I’ve been told dozens and dozens of times over: NO ONE HAS EVER PRODUCED RESULTS! At least not here in CT.
• Money has been shelled out over and over again, only to find NO return on their investment. Insha’Allah, they will personally be rewarded by Allah SWT; but no physical, hard-factsreported back to the financial supporters!
• Alhumdulilah, I LOVE CT. We have the best public and private schools and, yes, we have the richest people in the country too–which can account for some of its success. Insha’Allah, it will be here in CT that we set a pace where the Best Models are set here for the country to emulate, isha’Allah, YarRabb.

As for,

Aaminah | August 2nd, 2008 at 4:50 pm..am a heck of a secretary, and would recommend running a “publishing center” for the students to publish their own work and would be more than happy to head up that kind of a project. And I’ve got non-profit background that may come into good use.

• Sister, we ARE making an in-house “publishing center”. We are publishing our slightly-altered Reading Rainbow book entries, during February in our “To be an Author” Month (linguistic intelligence)! All children, regardless of the age and grade limitations of this contest WILL publish a book, insha’Allah. We will end the month with a “I’m a Proud Parent of Author from Salma K Farid Academy” T-shirt signing “Authors! Authors! Night”. Basically, instead of a book-signing event-per se, each student will have their own table and showcase their published-book, and we’ll use T-shirt paint/markers in which each child will sign the front of their parents’ T-shirt (”proud parent”) and the back will be ALL the student-authors. Pretty Sweet idea, huh? I just drafted all the details last night, alhumdulah.
• We have 1 of the 8 Multiple Intelligence Themes each month, and Health & Safety Education for the 9th month.

Well, I think is this enough to get the ball-rollin’ (in terms of getting more supporters); right now; insha’Allah.

Please share below, spread the word, and Come help bring Salma K Farid Academy to life!

Tags: critique of islamic girls' schools, islamic ideals, muslim teens, Salma F Farid Academy, school for muslim teens