Shenandoah Valley, VA – Schools in a Shenandoah Valley county in Virginia were closed Friday and a weekend holiday concert and athletic events were canceled amid an angry backlash about a school lesson involving the Islamic faith.
Join our WhatsApp groupSubscribe to our Daily Roundup Email
Augusta County school officials said they had not received any specific threats but were alarmed by the volume and tone of the complaints, including some from outside Virginia, according to news reports. In response, additional police were stationed at county schools Thursday.
In a statement, school officials said: “We regret having to take this action, but we are doing so based on the recommendations of law enforcement and the Augusta County School Board, out of an abundance of caution.”
Anger over the lesson has escalated since a teacher at Riverheads High School had students in her class complete an assignment one week ago. It involved practicing calligraphy and writing a statement in Arabic.
The statement translated to: “There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah.”
At a forum Tuesday, one parent said the assignment promoted a false religious doctrine, while other parents expressed outrage. Some demanded that the teacher be fired.
Besides the cancellation of classes, school administrators also called off a fundraiser to benefit a local family and all athletic events.
The teacher’s lesson was drawn from instructional material that also includes Judeo-Christian assignments.
School officials said the aim of the lesson was to illustrate the complexity of the written Arabic language, not to promote any religious system.
In a statement, district officials said they will use a different example of Arabic in future classes.
“Although students will continue to learn about world religions as required by the state Board of Education and the Commonwealth’s Standards of Learning, a different, non-religious sample of Arabic calligraphy will be used in the future,” Doug Shifflett, Augusta County’s assistant superintendent for administration, said in a statement.
The News Virginian said Fishersville resident Tim Cooper called the newspaper’s office to ask why the Wilson Memorial High School holiday concert was cancelled.
“It looks like fear wins again,” Tim Cooper told the newspaper.
The writing of that statement contained in the homework assignment constitutes, according to Islam, the acceptance of Islam and would have effectively converted the students to Islam according to Islamic law.
In my view this is illegal and morally wrong, “There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah.” Is one off Islam’s pillars of faith. Public schools should under no conditions teach any faith; I strongly condemn the religion teaching and intensely argue for the separation of church and state.
Real question is, did the teacher know the ramifications of the assignment? The district needs to have another look into the background of the teacher. Background check!!!!
The class lesson is the exact same thing that’s written on ISIS flags and what ISIS terrorists wear over their foreheads. This is what the strangemark is on the ISIS flag. I don’t think someone is that stupid to put this in a classroom so they need to be fired immediately for it because even if they are that stupid, they shouldn’t be anywhere near teaching children and if they aren’t that stupid, then we need to investigate them for terrorist connections..