In a strip mall in northwestern Toronto, behind a blank storefront, old wooden desks are lined up in rows of three. At 3 p.m., children pour into the parking lot carrying books, while a little girl and boy stay behind at their desks, giggling and copying vocabulary from a blackboard while they wait to be picked up.
The school opened in September and has 30 students. Their six teachers lead Somalian and Arabic language lessons on top of the regular curriculum, plus Islamic studies.
They’re poorly paid, as tuition is only $250 monthly per student. But there’s a waiting list of more than 200 and the teachers have been promised that the school will balloon, along with their salaries, as soon as its directors can find a bigger space.
Called Rauf Academy, it is one of a handful of similar brand-new schools in the Toronto area, a legacy of parental anger over Ontario’s new sex-ed lessons that promises to outlive this year’s protests, such as a day of mass absences planned for Thursday.
“We heard the rumblings that a lot of parents are going to remove the kids, so we said, well, that might give us the kick-start, the momentum we need,” said Rauf Academy’s director, Yacoob Bayat.
His staff count two other homegrown schools nearby in Etobicoke, and another school director says two more opened their doors in Mississauga a month ago.
The sex-ed curriculum took effect in September, although its lessons won’t be taught in Toronto schools until later this year. Mr. Bayat said the province made another mistake by not reaching out to protesting parents, leaving them feeling there would be no meaningful religious accommodation.
Islamic schools have long gotten their starts in Toronto with bare-bones operations like this one. But Mr. Bayat and other school leaders say their ultimate goal is to create an alternative for Muslim families, a community-funded system of free education. So far 11 schools are working together as an informal board.
“As crazy as it sounds, maybe this was a good thing. Maybe this is what the community needed to galvanize and to do something,” said Mr. Bayat, a car mechanic originally from South Africa. “Communities in general, they know we’ve got a problem, but unless somebody takes the lead, nobody really does anything.”
Others in Toronto’s Muslim community say they don’t want parents to lose sight of the benefits of regular public education.
“The level of quality is really high,” said Rabea Murtaza, a mother and college teacher who is a member of a two groups supporting the new curriculum. “And if you walk away, you lose the opportunity to make any difference at all.”
Link to rest:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...w-private-schools-in-toronto/article26608144/
The school opened in September and has 30 students. Their six teachers lead Somalian and Arabic language lessons on top of the regular curriculum, plus Islamic studies.
They’re poorly paid, as tuition is only $250 monthly per student. But there’s a waiting list of more than 200 and the teachers have been promised that the school will balloon, along with their salaries, as soon as its directors can find a bigger space.
Called Rauf Academy, it is one of a handful of similar brand-new schools in the Toronto area, a legacy of parental anger over Ontario’s new sex-ed lessons that promises to outlive this year’s protests, such as a day of mass absences planned for Thursday.
“We heard the rumblings that a lot of parents are going to remove the kids, so we said, well, that might give us the kick-start, the momentum we need,” said Rauf Academy’s director, Yacoob Bayat.
His staff count two other homegrown schools nearby in Etobicoke, and another school director says two more opened their doors in Mississauga a month ago.
The sex-ed curriculum took effect in September, although its lessons won’t be taught in Toronto schools until later this year. Mr. Bayat said the province made another mistake by not reaching out to protesting parents, leaving them feeling there would be no meaningful religious accommodation.
Islamic schools have long gotten their starts in Toronto with bare-bones operations like this one. But Mr. Bayat and other school leaders say their ultimate goal is to create an alternative for Muslim families, a community-funded system of free education. So far 11 schools are working together as an informal board.
“As crazy as it sounds, maybe this was a good thing. Maybe this is what the community needed to galvanize and to do something,” said Mr. Bayat, a car mechanic originally from South Africa. “Communities in general, they know we’ve got a problem, but unless somebody takes the lead, nobody really does anything.”
Others in Toronto’s Muslim community say they don’t want parents to lose sight of the benefits of regular public education.
“The level of quality is really high,” said Rabea Murtaza, a mother and college teacher who is a member of a two groups supporting the new curriculum. “And if you walk away, you lose the opportunity to make any difference at all.”
Link to rest:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...w-private-schools-in-toronto/article26608144/
