Media Spotlight

Article: This school has a perfect 10
By SARAH GREEN, SUN MEDIA

[Original Article]

The hands of students in Fareena Masood's Grade 3 class fly into the air when the teacher asks for the number of syllables in "communication."

The question stumps a few of the young students at the Islamic Foundation School -- "Is it four?" one asks -- before another student correctly answers five.

As Masood -- called Sister Fareena by her students -- writes the answer on the blackboard, one boy whispers an excited "yes" as he checks his own page.

Next on the teacher's list, written in chalk on the blackboard, are the words "wonderful" and "school."

They're fitting words for a vocabulary lesson at the Scarborough private school which is one of 25 schools ranked first in the province by the 2008 Fraser Institute report card on elementary education. The school, which has 497 male and female students from JK to Grade 12, earned a perfect 10 score, according to the report.

"They feel very good about themselves. It perks them up," principal Yahya Qureshi said, noting the students' achievements are announced during Friday prayers at the Nugget Ave. mosque, which also houses some of the school's classrooms and gymnasium. "The parents feel very good, the community feels very good about it."

Students at private schools aren't required to write the standardized tests administered by the Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO), but Qureshi said the tests given to Grade 3 and 6 classes every spring are one way to gauge their progress.

"The community is anxious to know: Is it really worthwhile to have my child in an Islamic school?" Qureshi said, noting parents pay $350 to $400 a month to send their children to the non-profit school.

The school -- with classrooms in both the mosque and a neighbouring building which once housed office units -- opened in 1993, driven by Muslim parents who wanted to give their children a religious education.

"We were struggling, we were trying to do it ourselves," Qureshi said.

While students learn Arabic and the Koran, the emphasis at the school is on academics, especially science, math and English, aiming to give students an education equalling or bettering that which is found in public schools. The structure is similar to Catholic schools, Qureshi said.

Students learn the provincial curriculum, earn Ontario Secondary School Diplomas, even follow the same calendar as Toronto's public schools with the addition of two Muslim holidays.

"How can we do better than the public system? It becomes quite a task. The public system is fantastic," said Qureshi, a public high school teacher in Toronto and Markham for 35 years. "You've got to offer something quite fantastic."

Qureshi started the DEAR program -- short for Drop Everything And Read -- to encourage daily reading and the school brings in scientists and other professionals to all classrooms twice a year to give students some first-hand experience. The school's calendar is filled with field trips.

Qureshi said students, who write admission exams to enrol in the high-demand school from Grade 2 and up, are encouraged to go to university, pursue professional careers and become leaders in the community -- not just the Muslim community. Two of the foundation's high school students were honoured two years ago by Boston-based Bentley College's Tomorrow25 leadership program, their pictures appearing in a Time magazine supplement.

Parents are also involved in school life -- many of them successful immigrants, from doctors to chartered accountants, who came to Canada to give their children a better life, Qureshi said.