First Muslim-Oriented High School in NW to Open

April 22, 2007

Source: KOMOTV

Wire Service: AP

http://www.komotv.com/news/local/7141111.html

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - Mounting pressures from Muslim parents in the region have prompted the Muslim Educational Trust to open the new coeducational Oregon Islamic Academy - the first high school in the Northwest geared to Muslim students.

Syed Ahmad was one of those parents. He told Wajdi Said, the trust's executive director, that he moved his family from Texas to Oregon for work and they lived in Tigard to be close to the Muslim Educational Trust's prekindergarten to eighth grade Islamic School. But he told Wajdi that he'd take his family back to Texas to attend an Islamic high school unless one opened here.

The academy's mission is "to shape the minds and hearts of its students according to the teachings of the Holy Quran and the traditions of the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH)," the parenthetical phrase an abbreviation for "Praise Be Unto Him."

Said explained that will come in rigorous classes of math, science, history, language arts, Arabic and other courses to prepare students to excel in college as inquisitive learners, and caring and moral adults who are proud of their Islamic beliefs.