Outrage Erupts Over "Madrassa" in Brooklyn Elementary School

With the growing population of Arabs in New York, the first public school dedicated to the study of the Arabic language and culture and open to students of all racial and ethnic backgrounds was to open for the 2007-2008 season.

Now, however, the Department of Education is rethinking the whole thing due to protests from parents from Public School 282, the elementary school in Park Slope, Brooklyn that was assigned to share building space with the Khalil Gibran school.

A handful of columnists who have called the proposed academy a madrassa, which teaches the Koran are also involved in the protests.

Alicia Colon, a columnist for The New York Sun, wrote that Osama bin Laden must have been "delighted" to hear the news of the school. "New York City, the site of the worst terrorist attack in our history, is bowing down in homage to accommodate and perhaps groom future radicals," she said. "I say break out the torches and surround City Hall to stop this monstrosity."

"Now is the critical time to teach young people Arabic," said Eileen F. Reilly, a director at Camba, a Brooklyn social services agency, and a friend of Ms. Almontaser's. "If a school like this can't happen in Brooklyn, where can it happen?"

Almontaser's goal is to create a school like other dual-language schools in the city, like the Shuang Wen Academy, a top-performing elementary school on the Lower East Side that teaches classes both in English and in Mandarin.

The principal is from Yemen.

Debbie Almontaser, came when she was 3. After September 11, 2001, she organized peace rallies to promote tolerance.

80 some students are to be enrolled to start off the sixth grade and then the plan is to enroll seventh - twelfth graders..

In The New York Sun, a column by Daniel Pipes, the director of the Middle East Forum, a conservative research center that says its goal is to promote American interests in the region, declared that "A Madrassa Grows in Brooklyn," contending that the school would generate problems and promote an "Islamic outlook."

"What you find is that the materials that are included in an Arabic curriculum have a natural tendency to promote Islam."

Ms. Almontaser said she planned a curriculum that was not religion-based, and that would include the history and contributions of the Arab people.

"It is not fair for anyone to make such negative remarks just because the school is going to be teaching Arabic as a language. She's a person who brings communities together and makes them understand and works on peace" said Mohammad Razvi, the executive director of the Council of Peoples Organization.

The parents are outraged. They staged protests and overwhelmed the principal's office with emails.

"We all just want 282 to remain an elementary school with the same space and services that we have now," said Xiomara Fraser, the PTA president. "Their interest is getting a whole new school that has nothing to do with this school and that will encroach on our space and disrupt the flow of this school." They were told they would have to sacrifice space they now use for computer instruction and chess.

At this point, the school may be postponed due to the controversy and the location.

A web site called the Militant Islamic Monitor, recently posted side by side pictures of Ms. Almontaser where she had changed her head dress to disguise her "Islamic agenda".