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 weekday evening tutoring sessions in mathematics, physics, chemistry, English, and French at the SNMC Musallah at Jockvale Heritage.
In 2009, I would go from Nortel to the downtown school board administrative office. Between September and December, we attended over 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). This required balancing efforts between two groups: the school board and the multiethnic Muslim community.
There were two major community-centric challenges. The first was selecting schoolteachers from each ethnic group. Alhamdulillah, this was resolved amicably. The second involved developing textbooks and curriculum.
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’ salaries covered by the school board.
After three years of ups and downs, the SNMC school moved to Michel Jean Public School. Over the next three years, we experienced three changes in external school principals. Eventually, we promoted one of our own teachers to the position of principal, which stabilized the school.
My wife, Asma Khan, the SNMC dreamer, and I, Dr. Emdad Khan, supervised the school every Saturday morning to ensure smooth operations.
In 2013, SNMC faced difficulties securing 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, a soccer team that had booked the space arrived. We negotiated with them and resolved the issue by offering some gifts.
The Islamic school ran from 1:00 PM to 3:30 PM in the afternoon 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.