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HISTORY
Al-Amal School started in September of 1994, and was
founded by parents and community members who wanted an alternative to
public school for their children. This group of four parents and one
community member founded the school and became the first governing board
of Al-Amal School.
Without many resources and only a $5000 donation, the
school started in the homes of two of the board members, who were also
teachers. The preschool was conducted in the Minneapolis town home of
the preschool teacher, and the elementary school, at that time
kindergarten through fourth grade, was conducted in the duplex home of
the elementary teacher in St. Paul. She lived on one level and rented
the other level to the school. Parents were charged tuition for sending
their children, and at that time, there were about thirty children in
the entire school, preschool through fourth grade. The school employed
three teachers and one teacher’s aid: a preschool teacher, an elementary
teacher, an Arabic/Islamic studies teacher, and an aid to help the
elementary teacher.
That same school year, in January 1995, the school
came up with a rental agreement with the Islamic Center of Minnesota (ICM),
and the entire school, preschool through fourth grade, moved to the ICM
building. Two more teachers were hired; a part-time teacher was hired to
teach science to kindergarten through fourth grades, and the teacher’s
aid was hired as a full-time teacher for kindergarten. The elementary
teacher taught first through fourth grade, and served as the school
administrator as well. By the end of that first school year, enrollment
had doubled to sixty students.
Since its inception, Al-Amal School has been adding a
grade every year. Since the academic year (2004-2005), its eleventh
year, Al-Amal School is a preschool through twelfth grade school, and
serves as of 2007 almost 400 students from around the Twin Cities area.
See Figure below for enrollment growth until Jan 2005.
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