August 2, 2007
Rajab 18, 1428

Dear Parents and Teachers,
Salaam-un-Alaykum.

I wanted to take this opportunity to relay an important message regarding Madrasah for the coming year.

As you all know, I have been appointed as Principal of Madrasah Az-Zahraa. I accept this position with the most humble wish to do the best that I can to make our Madrasah as successful as it can be. The mandate given to me as Principal was to inspire our children and teachers to achieve their full potential, to make the Madrasah run as efficiently and organized as possible, and to give opportunities for Madrasah students to make presentations to enhance their public speaking abilities.

For the coming Madrasah year, to achieve this mandate and my own additional objectives for Madrasah, I have developed some immediate goals that I would like to achieve. Some of these are the following:

=> Give students and teachers more opportunities and time to interact with one another on a social level

=> Incorporate field trips and Spirit Days (like “Hat Day” or “Wear the Colours of your Favorite Islamic Country Day”)
=> Re-establish Assemblies for Friday Madrasah
=> Give students some Gym or Recreation time
=> And most importantly to bring UNITY to our Madrasah

In looking at my mandate and objectives, I have come to the hard conclusion that the two days of Madrasah need to be combined together into one. The last three years that we have had two different Madrasah sessions has solved some of the logistical problems that we have in Madrasah, but it has also introduced other unintended consequences. Our Madrasah has had a slight decrease in enrollment in the past year because of a few reasons, including the two other Madrasahs now fully running in the Lower Mainland (Al-Mustafa Madrasah and Noor Madrasah), which helps with some of the logistical problems we had faced in the past. My strong feeling, as it is with some of the people who I have talked to, is that we can make our Madrasah work by running it on a single day.

The next challenge was to find a day and time that would be the most suitable. This was also an exercise that took some deep soul-searching to accomplish. Here is what I looked at:

=> Friday night: Even without combining the whole Madrasah onto Friday night, we have some disadvantages with Friday. Children and teachers are tired after a long day, and this is not conducive to an ideal learning environment. The three hours that we have on Friday night (6:30pm – 9:30pm) is too restrictive to conduct all the classes, let alone allow us to implement some of the improvements that I’d like to. It is difficult to use other areas of the centre on Friday nights due to Community programs conflicting with the Madrasah timings. These other programs also mean that teachers and students occasionally miss out on other programs that run at the centre. From my own experience, I’m finding that traffic is also getting worse on Friday nights, and many students and teachers are arriving late. The main benefit of the Friday Madrasah is that it frees up the entire weekend for other activities, but is it worth the cost? Are we doing justice to our children’s Islamic education? I call the Friday Madrasah the “Over-and-done-with Madrasah” option.

=> Saturday morning: We have had Madrasah on Saturday mornings for almost 30 years, so we know that this is practical and viable, BUT with the last three years of having Friday Madrasah, our children and parents have had their horizons opened to a wealth of sports and recreational activities that were previously not available. Many sports and other activities for children are geared to Saturdays, and to switch Madrasah back to Saturday for everyone would be doing a significant disservice to these children that are benefiting from the activities.

=> Sunday morning: As with Saturday, the many benefits of having Madrasah on Sunday include: Children and teachers come to Madrasah prepared and refreshed; No road traffic; More time in the day to use if required; options for an assembly, longer break and playtime; Being able to use other areas of the Centre if required; Most Madrasahs across North America and in Europe have Madrasah on Sundays; The society we live in considers Sundays a Holy-Day, so not many sports or activities would clash with this time. The main disadvantage of having Madrasah on Sunday morning is the interference with what many have come to consider Sundays as being a “Family Day” to do activities together as a family.

After considering all of these facets of the issue, I have decided that Madrasah be switched to Sunday mornings for the coming Madrasah year (2007-2008). We will have Madrasah closed on all long weekends, including Christmas break, Spring break, and Easter Break. We will try this for one full year, and evaluate how it has worked out. I know that this change will bring about many sacrifices for individuals and families, but I hope that you will recognize the many benefits that this option potentially has for the effectiveness of Madrasah. We want to ensure that our Madrasah continues to progress, and with all of your continued support, I’m confident this change will be successful. On July 31st I met with many of the teachers of Madrasah, and after hearing the above explanation, they have given their support for this change.

I would like to hold an information session for Parents and those teachers who could not make it to the last meeting. I will be Insha-Allah traveling for Umrah over the next couple of weeks (returning on August 19th), so I’d like to tentatively schedule the meeting for Wednesday August 22nd, at 7:30pm. Please endeavor to come to this meeting. In the meantime, you are welcome to email madrasahazzahraa@yahoo.ca, contact Br. Shaheen Rashid (Vice Principal), or Br. Hussein Bhojani (Director of Religious and Cultural Affairs).

Thank you sincerely for your kind attention, and fair consideration of this issue. I will Insha-Allah remember you all in my Du’as as I visit the Holy Sites over the next couple of weeks.

With Du’as and Salaams,

Sr. Shabnam Dewji
Principal, Madrasah Az-Zahraa