Williamson County and northwest Travis County, includes the cities of Round Rock and portions of Austin and Cedar Park. Earlier this year, the community reviewed and provided feedback on potential calendars. The academic calendar committee, consisting of parents, teachers and administrators, reviewed the feedback and made their final recommendation to the trustees. ih
Weekend Schools Get WISER Muslim educators announced the launch of WISER (Weekend Islamic Schools Educational Resources; https://wiser-usa.org) to provide guidance, training, resources and accreditation to Weekend Islamic Schools, reports Susan Labadi (founder, Genius School, Inc.; board member, WISER). Most Muslim youth, it was noted, are not enrolled in full-time Islamic schools. Parents’ options are typically weekend school, after-school programs, summer camp or homeschooling. Regrettably, some Muslim parents do nothing and wonder why their children don’t know their own religion. Several concerned leaders of youth Islamic education working under Necva Ozgur (founder and executive director, MERIT; founding school head, New Horizons School, Pasadena, Calif.) discussed how they could help Muslim children and their parents learn about and practice the faith. This led to the formation of WISER, a national organization. Besides Ozgur, the board includes Amal Sakr Elhoseiny (New Horizon School, Pasadena), Sufia Azmat (executive director, CISNA), Adita Arya (Afghan Literacy Foundation), Susan Labadi, Thouraya Boubetra (Aldeen Foundation), Shahida Alikhan (principal, New Horizon School - Los Angeles), Samar Ghannoum (Pasadena Language Center), Hanan Amaira (youth program coordinator, Rabata) and Dahlia Hamdi. WISER arranged a full-day pre-conference on May 13, at the ISNA Education Forum in Chicago to connect and share with weekend schoolteachers and leaders. The sessions focused on critical elements of the relevant best practices. Participants received a Weekend School Playbook to help them review and verify critical elements of best practices for their schools. ih that exceeded their goal. They reduced their grid electricity use by 50%. They are an EPA Energy Star certified congregation, one of only four in Indiana.” Every year IPL invites people of faith nationwide to explain how they’re responding to climate change by entering this challenge.
Illinois celebrated the first-ever Muslim American Heritage Month this January. There wasn’t much fanfare because the nonprofit organization, the Muslim American Leadership Alliance (MALA), which began celebrating Muslim American heritage in 2015, didn’t have much time to prepare after lobbying for the heritage month.
ACHIEVERS
Governor JB Pritzker issued the proclamation last December to celebrate the contributions of the state’s Muslim Americans every January starting in 2022. “I would say at the beginning it was a shock,” said Ahmed Flex Omar, who came to the U.S. as a refugee from Somaliland [a self-proclaimed independent republic recognized by no country or international organization] when he was 19, adding, “Definitely going to be larger efforts next year, but we are very happy we have welcomed the new year with Muslim American Heritage Month.” A new state law that came into effect this year requires schools to teach the contributions of Americans of different faith groups. In January, the state also observed its first Muhammad Ali Day. The Round Rock Independent School District Board of Trustees approved the academic calendars for 2022-23 and 2023-24 at its regular meeting on February17. These new calendars recognize Eid al-Fitr on April 21, 2023, and on April 10, 2024. The district, located in southern Texas’
M. Affan Badar was named a 2022 Industrial Engineering and Operation Management (IEOM) Fellow and will be announced as a new fellow at the IEOM Annual Conference in Istanbul, Turkey, during March 2022. This distinction is the highest level of membership to recognize individual contributions to the industrial engineering and operations management profession. Fellows have distinguished themselves by conducting theoretical and applied research and implementing proven industrial engineering and operations management tools. Badar, who is a certified professional in engineering management, is a tenured professor and former chair of Indiana State University’s Applied Engineering & Technology Management department. In addition to being a member of ISNA’s Board of Directors, he has served on the ISNA board (2014-18) and election committee (2014-17), as well as the immediate past president of Association of Muslim Scientists, Engineers and Technological Professionals (AMSET). The Connecticut House of Representatives Gets Its First Muslim Member Maryam Khan (D) won a special election to the 5th House District of Windsor and Hartford on March 2, becoming its first elected Muslim member. She won nearly 75% of the votes in a three-way race to succeed former Rep. Brandon McGee Jr. (D). The election gave Democrats a 97-54 majority in the House. Khan has been a member of the Windsor (Conn.) board of election since 2017 and currently serves as its vice president. She
MAY/JUNE 2022 ISLAMIC HORIZONS
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