Address by the Chairman of the Board of Trustees to parents on Curriculum Night

In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful
 
September 13, 2006
 
Dear Averroes Academy Parents, Staff and Students,
 
Assalaamu Alaykum. On behalf of the Board of Trustees of Averroes Academy I would like to welcome all new and returning families to this new school year. We are delighted that you have selected Averroes Academy for your child’s education and humbled that you have placed your trust in this institution for the Islamic guidance and spiritual growth of your child. I would have prefered to address you in person, however, as willed by Allah, I am away on a business trip this week. While I am not there in person, my thoughts are with you and the school as you gather together on curriculum night.

This past summer has been quite busy for both the school administration and the Board of Trustees. While the school principal, and staff were busy preparing for the new school year, the Board of Trustees were busy working with the Village on the permit for the new school building. With the objective of growing Averroes Academy up to eight grade in the new school building, we have introduced middle school this year with sixth grade. 

A special thank you and jazakallahu khayran goes to our staff members who worked over the summer to prepare for an outstanding new school year. Some of them are:

1. Our office manager, Ms. Jarad who spent most of the summer taking care of all adminstrative details so that the school office would be ready for the new school year.

2. Our middle school teachers - Mrs. Ali and Mrs. Ahmed who worked tremendously hard to design a challenging new middle school curriculum.

3. Finally, as always, our principal, Mrs. Hussain, who worked tirelessly all summer to put together a talented team of teachers, and everything else that is required to provide a great educational experience for our young children.

While you are quite familiar with the school staff, curriculum and academic calendar for the current year, I would like to take this opportunity to update you on the activities taking place for construction of the new school building. Over the last three months while we have been pursuing the construction permit with the village, we have had a series of challenges which we continue to work through, one at a time.

As some of you are aware, early in the spring of this year we had completed the architectural plans and submitted them to the Village of Northbrook for pursuing the construction permit. After a couple of hearings and reviews the village and the fire department wanted us to make changes to allow for greater access for emergency vehicles around the perimeter of the building. The plans allowed access for one fire truck on each side of the building but the fire department wanted access for two fire trucks on each side of the building. We had our architect propose changes to meet their requirement and found we would have to make compromises to the building.  This would have reduced the classroom sizes and made the building a very narrow and unappealling structure. While, we all wanted the new school to go up as soon as possible, we did not want to invest all this time and money into a facility with shortcomings from the beginning. The logical option was to look for a different parcel of land or to look into procuring additional land next to our current facility.

Around this time, we received a parent suggestion of another property with an existing building in Glenview. We immediately looked at it and considered it carefully, but found it to be too expensive at this time. Over the summer, we continued to investigate several other properties in the North/Northwest suburbs considering each of them carefully. Each of them was found to be either unsuitable for school construction or did not have the right location or zoning or the land was too expensive.

Simultaneously we had asked our realtor to approach neighboring properties next to our current facility to find out if they would like to sell. Alhamdullillah, I would like to share the good news with you that we have found a neighbor who is willing to sell.  This additional parcel of land will accommodate our current design and give us more space for future growth, inshallah. However, it has delayed our original intent of breaking ground this year.  Further, this land purchase is going to increase the overall project cost. In spite of this the board is determined to do the needful to procure this land and is actively working on means of raising funds to buy this land by January 2007, inshallah.

While there is no visible sign of construction, I would like to emphasize how important it is for you as parents to continue to have faith in Allah (SWT) and know that the management team is doing its best to expedite this process. I would also like to say that we would not have gotten as far as we did without the will of Allah (SWT) and without the help, support and duas of all current and former parents, ICC board members and the school staff. May Allah (SWT) reward each and every one of your for your sincere intentions and actions.

While we proceed with our plans to build the new school, the biggest concern at this point is sufficient funds to purchase the neighboring land and to finish the building as soon as we break ground. Please continue to support the school with your donations of money or time or both. Inshallah, with Ramadan on the horizon, we look for all parents to help support the school by donating or helping to raise donations of zakat and/or sadaqah from friends and family. You will be receiving more information from the school shortly.
 
Wassalam,
Chairman, Board of Trustees
Averroes Academy