Teachers start new Islamic school
Dozens of students have enrolled after the sudden closure of the Islamic Foundation high school
Three teachers whose jobs were impacted when a private Islamic high school abruptly shut down, are opening up a new “leadership academy” in the hopes of giving dozens of displaced students a viable alternative.
The move comes just days before the new school year begins.
Long-time teachers and employees Riyad Khan, Omar Essawi and Ali Haroon were in the midst of preparing for the new term at the Islamic Foundation School (IFS) in east Toronto when they heard last week that the high school would not be reopening in September.
“No one imagined it would lead to this,” said Khan, who taught at IFS for 11 years and was one of 35 teachers to unionize in May.
“We thought, at the most, it would give us a way to negotiate in fair dealings with each other,” he said, adding he resigned from IFS last week, but never received a formal layoff notice.
Once the closure was announced, the three teachers quickly sprang into action to open up the Gibraltar Leadership Academy — a project they have been working on for the last year, Khan said.
About 50 students, many from IFS, have already registered for the school, said Essawi, who was a non-unionized staffer and former student at IFS.
Last week, the management at IFS stunned the tight-knit community when they said they had no choice but to close the decades-old high school, citing financial issues and low enrolment. The elementary school at the same site will continue to operate.
The union, United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), has called the move to close the high school a form of “reprisal” against recently unionized employees.
On Tuesday, the union filed a complaint with the Ontario Labour Board alleging the employer “has engaged in a series of unfair labour practices” and asking for the matter to be heard “on an expedited basis.”
Muneeza Sheikh, a partner at Levitt LLP Employment & Labour Law, and legal counsel for Islamic Foundation, said the school was “disappointed at a number of mischaracterizations” set out by the union in their complaint and will be filing a response to the allegations.
The last-minute closure set the parents and students — many of whom had attended at IFS since Grade 1— scrambling to find space at local schools and sad at the prospect of not graduating with their lifelong friends.
Khan and Essawi say that’s why many parents have been willing to consider their school.
“We have worked with some of these students for years and our students trust in us, as do their parents,” Khan said. “We fully intend to help them get into university and prepare them as best as we can,” he said, adding another Islamic school offered to let their academy use its facilities for the next year.
Plans for the academy began last year, with the initial goal of setting up an Islamic school summer program.
The program intended to “instill Islamic character in our students, ensuring their development as socially responsible citizens of Canada.”
Essawi said the academy, originally scheduled to open next summer, was to offer students academic credits, but would also reinforce skills “lacking in traditional Islamic schools” such as leadership programs, public speaking and a summer co-op.
In preparation, they submitted necessary paperwork to the Ministry of Education earlier this year, he said.
All private schools in Ontario are required to submit a “notice of intention to operate a private school,” after which ministry staff make an unannounced visit to confirm the school meets requirements set out in the Education Act.
The ministry also conducts inspections of schools wishing to offer credits toward the high school diploma. More than 1,200 private schools are registered in Ontario.
A ministry spokesperson said they had received the required documentation from the academy and will follow the normal process in the coming months.
Moreover, “because the school began this process in June, it may begin operating in September,” she said.
“This is not a pop-up shop,” Khan said. “We have been dedicated to this project and Islamic education for a long time. We want to make sure we run the school in the right way.”
Khan said pushing for high standards was also his goal as a teacher at IFS, which is why he voted to join the union in May.
He said teachers were eager to “have a voice at the table.”
“A lot of it came down to relationships between the teaching staff and management and how they were treated,” said Khan, including issues of respect and job security.
He said the issue of wages had not yet come up in negotiations and was never considered a priority for staff. A union representative told the Star that, on average, teachers were paid around $40,000 a year.
Fathima Cader, legal counsel for the
“This is not a pop-up shop. We have been dedicated to this project and Islamic education for a long time. We want to make sure we run the school in the right way.” RIYAD KHAN TEACHER AND CO-CREATOR OF GIBRALTAR LEADERSHIP ACADEMY
UFCW, said “the parties were at the very early stages of bargaining,” including agreeing on “basic language” in the contract including the preamble, grievance process, and health and safety issues, when the employer decided it was going to close its high school.
“By this point, the union had not made any wage proposal,” she said, adding the employer provided no in- dication to the union that there were financial troubles at the last meeting on Aug. 18, or that it had any intention of shutting down. It announced the closure to parents the next day.
She said IFS management also spoke to parents about a possible tuition increase.
In a letter to parents sent late last week, IFS management said the high school closure was not related to the union, but that “the high school is being shut down for financial and administrative reasons,” such as low enrolment.
“The foundation cannot continue without the financial projections, which is the basis of sustainability of any organization,” the letter said.
In an effort to be more transparent, and “learn from the past,” the management said it plans to hire a human resources officer, an accountant and health and safety officer, will facilitate the formation of a parents association and will ensure greater consultation with parents on major decisions.
But when pressed by the union to initiate a last-ditch effort to keep the high school open, the management suggested it was too late.
“We spoke to the union and explained the difficulty in running the school at a loss with low enrolment,” said Akbar Warsi, a spokesperson for the IFS board of directors, in an email.
He added that nearly 100 high school students have transferred from the school in the last week.
Despite the tensions between the two parties, both the union and management say they plan to continue to negotiate a contract for the remaining 25 full-time employees at the school.