Founder’s Corner
SNMC Journey (Part 6): SNMC Saturday School Under OCDSB
In 2008/09, we faced numerous obstacles to bring SNMC’s multi-language school under the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board (OCDSB).
We were already running the SNMC Islamic school on Sundays, a Quran learning and memorization school on Fridays, and tutoring sessions for mathematics, physics, chemistry, English, and French on weekday evenings at the SNMC Musallah at Jockvale Heritage.
In 2009, I used to go from Nortel to the downtown school board administrative office. From September to December, we had at least ten meetings at different times to resolve various issues.
Simultaneously, we held multiethnic community meetings in Barrhaven for languages such as Arabic, Bangla, Somali, Urdu, and Dari (Afghani). We had to balance efforts between two groups: the school board and the multiethnic Muslim community.
There were two community-centric issues to address. The first was selecting schoolteachers from each ethnic group. Alhamdulillah, we resolved this amicably. The second issue involved textbook and curriculum development.
By June 2009, we successfully opened the school on Saturdays from 9:30 AM to 12:30 PM at Barrhaven Adrian Clarkson School, with all teachers paid by the school board.
After three years of ups and downs, the SNMC school was moved to Michel Jean Public School. During the next three years, there were three changes in external school principals. Eventually, we promoted one of our own schoolteachers as principal, which stabilized the school.
My wife, Asma Khan, and I were at the school every Saturday morning to ensure its smooth operation.
In 2013, SNMC could not secure a school from the school board or a city community hall for Eid Al-Fitr salah. In an emergency, we arranged the salah in four shifts at Michel Jean Public School. During the last shift, however, we encountered an issue when a soccer team, which had been booked, arrived. We negotiated with them by giving some gifts to resolve the situation.
The Islamic school operated from 1:00 PM to 3:30 PM and was named SNMC Al-Huda School. Alhamdulillah, as SNMC is diverse and inclusive, the teachers and students were multiethnic, and the school ran smoothly.