Islamic Academy in Virginia Enrolls 950 Students from 28 Countries

By Dima Zalatimo

A traditional red-brick school building in Alexandria, VA houses an unconventional institution, the Islamic Saudi Academy (ISA). With 950 students from 28 different countries presently enrolled, the academy combines the Fairfax County curriculum with a Saudi Arabian curriculum of Arabic and Islamic studies.

Established by the Saudi government in 1984, ISA provides an educational alternative primarily for national capital area Saudis, and for US and foreign citizens who desire a more Islamic education for their children. Admission is not restricted to Muslim and Arab children. The academy's headmaster, Dr. Saad Al-Adwani of Saudi Arabia, said that many American families with neither ethnic nor religious ties to the Middle East enroll their children in the school because of its "drug-free, problem free" environment.

Separate Schools For Boys and Girls

ISA comprises, at the upper grade levels, a boys' and a girls' school administered individually and off-limits to students of the opposite gender. Mai Dahmas, a 15-year-old junior who attended public schools before enrolling at ISA, said she likes not having boys in her class because she finds them "an added distraction." Dahmas also said that being at ISA allows her the opportunity to pray in school.

Academy classes range from pre-kindergarten through high school. Walls of the lower grade classrooms are covered with brightly colored, bilingual visual aides, including Walt Disney and Sesame Street characters. Facilities for upper grades include elaborate science labs, two gymnasiums, Arabic and English language labs, computer labs and a mosque.

The academy, which boasts a relatively low student/teacher ratio of 9:1, was recently accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) and the Virginia Association of Independent Schools (VAIS). It is guided by a board of trustees chaired by the Saudi ambassador to the United States, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, whose children are enrolled in the school.

ISA employs an in-house educational consulting firm to help tailor courses to the special academic needs of its students. These include English as a Second Language (ESL) and Arabic as a Second Language (ASL). ISA hosts regular science fairs, an annual heritage day and an open house, all of which generate parent involvement.

ISA graduated its first class of 22 seniors in June 1990. An academic counselor at ISA makes sure that seniors have secured college admission before they graduate from high school. Al-Adwani, an educator with 27 years of experience, said that his students have been accepted by a number of area universities, including both Georgetown and George Washington University.

The spirit of competition is high at ISA. The boy's intermediate school soccer team has won tournaments for the last three years. This year the boy's high school soccer team also won its league's tournament, and Al Adwani proudly displays that trophy on his desk. He jokingly complains that intermediate school tournaments award trophies to individual students, and not their school.

The girl's school participates in speech tournaments. One of the students, 17-year-old Asma Ramadan, recently represented the state of Virginia in the National Catholic Forensic League Grand National Tournament.

"At nationals in Chicago I recited Nizar Qabbani's poem, "What Value Has a People Whose Tongue is Tied?" she said. "People loved it. " Originally from Libya, Ramadan, a senior, said she has her eyes set on Northeastern University, where she would like to study communication.

Losing Preconceived Notions

Ramadan's coach is Barbara Robbins, an English teacher at ISA for three years. She and the other American teachers make up about 65 percent of the academy's faculty. Robbins said that many of her preconceived notions about Arabs and Muslims were dispelled when she joined ISA.

"I thought the girls wouldn't be interested in achieving, that they would rather stay home and raise families," she said. "I expected the boys to be running circles around the girls academically, but they are not."

Robbins welcomes the values her students bring into the classroom. "When I ask students in American schools to write about someone they admire, they pick singers, actors and athletes. Here, the children write about their mother, father, sister or grandmother," she reports.

ISA also competes in Model United Nations Conferences and hosts spelling bees. Despite the achievements of ISA's first six years since the school's founding, the greatest being the ability to combine the best of two worlds, the Girls' School principal, Monerah Al-Angary, who is also the wife of the school's headmaster, Al-Adwani, says she is not satisfied. She looks forward to many more accomplishments by her rapidly expanding school.

Dima Zalatimo is features editor for the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.