Minnesota taxpayers funding Muslim school

[Abdul-Azim]

Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy (TIZA), a K-8 charter school in Inver Grove Heights. Charter schools are public schools and by law must not endorse or promote religion.

Evidence suggests, however, that TIZA is an Islamic school, funded by Minnesota taxpayers.



TIZA has many characteristics that suggest a religious school. It shares the headquarters building of the Muslim American Society of Minnesota, whose mission is "establishing Islam in Minnesota." The building also houses a mosque. TIZA's executive director, Asad Zaman, is a Muslim imam, or religious leader, and its sponsor is an organization called Islamic Relief.

Students pray daily, the cafeteria serves halal food - permissible under Islamic law -- and "Islamic Studies" is offered at the end of the school day.

Zaman maintains that TIZA is not a religious school. He declined, however, to allow me to visit the school to see for myself, "due to the hectic schedule for statewide testing." But after I e-mailed him that the Minnesota Department of Education had told me that testing would not begin for several weeks, Zaman did not respond -- even to urgent calls and e-mails seeking comment before my first column on TIZA.

Now, however, an eyewitness has stepped forward. Amanda Getz of Bloomington is a substitute teacher. She worked as a substitute in two fifth-grade classrooms at TIZA on Friday, March 14. Her experience suggests that school-sponsored religious activity plays an integral role at TIZA.

Arriving on a Friday, the Muslim holy day, she says she was told that the day's schedule included a "school assembly" in the gym after lunch.

Before the assembly, she says she was told, her duties would include taking her fifth-grade students to the bathroom, four at a time, to perform "their ritual washing."

Afterward, Getz said, "teachers led the kids into the gym, where a man dressed in white with a white cap, who had been at the school all day," was preparing to lead prayer. Beside him, another man "was prostrating himself in prayer on a carpet as the students entered."

"The prayer I saw was not voluntary," Getz said. "The kids were corralled by adults and required to go to the assembly where prayer occurred."

Islamic Studies was also incorporated into the school day. "When I arrived, I was told 'after school we have Islamic Studies,' and I might have to stay for hall duty," Getz said. "The teachers had written assignments on the blackboard for classes like math and social studies. Islamic Studies was the last one -- the board said the kids were studying the Qu'ran. The students were told to copy it into their planner, along with everything else. That gave me the impression that Islamic Studies was a subject like any other."

After school, Getz's fifth-graders stayed in their classroom and the man in white who had led prayer in the gym came in to teach Islamic Studies. TIZA has in effect extended the school day -- buses leave only after Islamic Studies is over. Getz did not see evidence of other extra-curricular activity, except for a group of small children playing outside. Significantly, 77 percent of TIZA parents say that their "main reason for choosing TIZA ... was because of after-school programs conducted by various non-profit organizations at the end of the school period in the school building," according to a TIZA report. TIZA may be the only school in Minnesota with this distinction.

Why does the Minnesota Department of Education allow this sort of religious activity at a public school? According to Zaman, the department inspects TIZA regularly -- and has done so "numerous times" -- to ensure that it is not a religious school.

But the department's records document only three site visits to TIZA in five years -- two in 2003-04 and one in 2007, according to Assistant Commissioner Morgan Brown. None of the visits focused specifically on religious practices.

[Wilson]

Why aren't they flying the American flag?

[capsweb]

Just look where this Madrassa is located -- beautiful location right on the lake. I'm betting the Saudi terrorists are funding this socalled school which is an outrage.

[mcsplain]

ACLU sues! A victory of sorts...

The Minnesota chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union says it’s suing a charter school that caters to Muslim students.

The ACLU names Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy, or TiZA, and the Minnesota Department of Education in a lawsuit in federal court that says the charter school is using taxpayer money to illegally promote religion.

The charter school, which has campuses in Inver Grove Heights and Blaine, has fallen under fire after a substitute teacher claimed the school was offering religious instruction in Islam to its students.

After investigating the school last year, the Education Department said the school hadn’t broken any laws. In a statement issued Wednesday, the department saiad they’re ‘carefully reviewing the lawsuit and will thoroughly respond.’

“We will continue to monitor the operations of TiZA Academy and, in response to issues raised about the school over the past year, we are in the process of drafting legislation to address these concerns,” wrote Deputy Commissioner Chas Anderson.

The state’s report directed the charter school to “correct” two areas related to religion at the school.

“The Minnesota Department of Education goes to great lengths to make clear to charter schools and their sponsors that, while schools should appropriately accommodate students’ religious beliefs, they must be ‘nonsectarian’ under the state’s charter school law,” Anderson said in May.

The department noted concerned about the school accommodating communal prayer and providing transportation to an after-school religious program for its approximately 300 students.

“We have directed the school to take appropriate corrective actions regarding these matters and will continue to provide oversight to ensure that the school is in compliance with state and federal law,” Anderson said.

“TIZA has received millions of dollars of taxpayer money to support what is, in essence, a private religious school,” said Charles Samuelson, state ACLU executive director.

The school, which has one campus in Inver Grove Heights and a smaller site in Blaine, had about 430 K-8 students last year, most of them Muslim. The public charter school, founded in 2003, receives per-pupil funding from the state that the ACLU said is expected to total $3.8 million for the current school year…

…Samuelson said the school took government aid money and paid it to a holding company which then donated it to the Muslim American Society of Minnesota. The money was used to pay for rent, according to the suit. He said that the school, holding company and the society were all incorporated on the same day by the same people, which Samuelson said was a conflict of interest. “They created legal fictions, but it’s the same organization,” Samuelson said.

The suit also alleges that there are prayers on the walls of the school entry and that teachers have participated in student prayer activities, which is forbidden in public schools. Samuelson said the school has used its website to seek volunteers to lead prayers. He also said that students and staff are required to dress in attire that conforms to Islamic religion.

The school has issued a handbook instructing staff to not discuss what goes on at the school, Samuelson said. “You cannot have a broad secrecy oath” in a school funded with public dollars, he said.

The ACLU investigation was prompted by a column about the school’s practices by Katherine Kersten, a former columnist for the Star Tribune, Samuelson said.