14 & Muslim follows Sahar, Malaieka and Ahmad as they transition from Islamic elementary school into high school, capturing what it means to be young, Muslim and growing up in Ontario.

Muslim Link was asked by Kubra Zakir, a Scarborough Campus Students’ Union Executive, to publish this statement in relation to the recent and unexpected closure of the Islamic Foundation School's high school.

To learn more about this closure and the controvery surrounding it, read this article by Noor Javed in The Toronto Star and this article by Mike Adler in InsideToronto.

You can also learn about the new school being opened by former Islamic Foundation School staff in order to support displaced students in this article by Noor Javed in The Toronto Star.

Tarbiyah Learning, the full-time Islamic school, is starting out the school year in brand new classrooms in Masjid Jami Omar, located in Ottawa's West end.   Muslim Link interviewed Tarbiyah's principal Ghazala Choudhury about the move and what parents and students can expect if they enroll in the school this year.  

It is a scene that is likely familiar to many young Muslim families living in Orleans. Usually the conversation starts something like this:

“MashaAllah, your kids have gotten so big! Are they in school yet?”

“The older one is starting next year. Going to try for Abraar School or Ottawa Islamic School.”

“Oh, that’s a great idea MashaAllah, both schools are great. It’s just too bad they’re so far from here.”

“Yeah, we’ll probably be moving to Kanata, or maybe Barrhaven. It’s too far going all the way from here every day. We should really have a school in Orleans someday.”

“Agreed, some day InshaAllah.”

Following the tragic killing of two Canadian soldiers in late October, flags at the Edmonton Islamic Academy (EIA) were flown at half-mast. Students joined fellow citizens in mourning the loss and the school principal offered special assemblies to discuss the Islamic perspective on such a tragedy.
"We started from the Quranic verse which says that whoever kills one human being, [it is] as if they have killed all of mankind. This was a crime equivalent to the killing of the whole of mankind," recalled Principal Moussa Ouarou, who was formerly the principal at Ottawa's Abraar School.

Each year the Simon Fraser Institute ranks Ontario schools based on their performance on the Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO) standardized tests for reading, writing and math. Ottawa's Ahlul Bayt Islamic School came in as the second best elementary school in Ottawa and among the top 100 in the province for its Grade 3 and Grade 6 scores from 2012 to 2013. This comes as no surprise to Ahlul Bayt's principal Leila Rahal. “Every year we receive very good results but the Institute only ranks schools that have classes of over 15 students. We don't always have that,” she explained. Mrs. Rahal credits the school's success to strictly following the Canadian curriculum and having the majority of its teachers being graduates of Ontario Teachers' Colleges.

The Abraar School is celebrating another year of stellar performances on province-wide academic tests.

For the sixth year running, third and sixth grade students at Abraar School scored well above provincial averages on the standardized EQAO Test that measures performance in reading, writing and mathematics.

In the 2011-2012 school year report, Abraar Grade 3 students scored 22 percentage points higher than the provincial average in reading, 24 per cent higher in writing and 28 per cent higher in mathematics; with a perfect 100 per cent in writing.