Muslim Public School Funded by Minnesota Taxpayers?

Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy (TIZA) is  K-8 charter school in Inver Grove Heights, Minnesota. If TIZA were a Christian school, it would be gone in a heartbeat. But because it is a Muslim school….

Charter schools are public schools and by law must not endorse or promote religion. But it looks to me that TIZA is an Islamic school, funded by Minnesota taxpayers.

Let’s take a look at TIZA.

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, (religious leader), and its sponsor is an organization called Islamic Relief.

Students pray daily.

The cafeteria serves halal food – permissible under Islamic law.

“Islamic Studies” is offered at the end of the school day.

Amanda Getz of Bloomington is a substitute teacher who worked as a substitute in two fifth-grade classrooms at TIZA on Friday, March 14.

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.”

Getz said, “Afterward, 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. The kids were corralled by adults and required to go to the assembly where prayer occurred.”

Getz said Islamic Studies were 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. 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. Prayer at TIZA does not appear to be spontaneously initiated by students, but rather scheduled, organized and promoted by school authorities.

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.

Why does the Minnesota Department of Education allow this sort of religious activity at a public school? 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.

According to federal guidelines on prayer in schools, teachers at a public school cannot participate in prayer with students. But the fact is school sponsorship of prayer services take place in the school building during school hours.

In addition, schools cannot favor one religion by offering services for only its adherents, or promote after-school religious instruction for only one group. The ACLU of Minnesota has launched an investigation of TIZA, and the Minnesota Department of Education has also begun a review.

TIZA’s operation as a public, taxpayer-funded school is troubling. TIZA is operating what is essentially an Islamic school at taxpayer expense. Now, TIZA is being held up as a national model for a new kind of charter school. If it passes legal muster, Minnesota taxpayers may soon find themselves footing the bill for a separate system of education just for Muslims.

Wake up people.