A Smooth Opening, and New Challenges

Ramadhan Mubarak! We are happy to report that the opening of school has gone smoothly, Al-Hamdulillah! However, we have experienced a decline in student enrollment this school year, as have many schools, due to a weak economy. This year more families have requested assistance from the school as many families struggle to pay their tuition, however, we are encouraged that so many of our parents have chosen to keep their children in the Mohammed Schools despite the financial challenges that we are all facing.

Our tuition is one of the lowest among private schools in the metro area. Tuition costs at some other private schools range from $13,000 to $20,000 on the high end.

While we are proud to say that our tuition did not go up this year, a fact that has helped many parents, the drop in enrollment along with family tuition assistance means that fewer dollars are available for staffing. Within the first weeks of school, we saw that we were headed for a monthly deficit of $12,000 based on current enrollment. To address this issue, we were forced to eliminate a full time position in the middle school and cover those classes with other instructional staff who held at minimum a bachelor’s degree in the field of science. In this way we are able to meet critical certification and education qualifications required by our accrediting agency.

In addition to middle school reassignments, modified budgetary allocations have been put in place for the early childhood department involving Pre-K 3, 1st and 2nd grades. At the high school level we have put in place credentialed staff in the Counselor’s Office, an AP teacher in the English department and a social studies teacher to fill a vacant social studies position.

Again, these decisions support our instructional priorities to utilize school resources more effectively. As we move into the future, we envision a school where all Muslim parents who desire to put their children in Mohammed Schools will be able to do so. Our goal is to increase our capacity to best use the resources we already have more strategically, including staff, time, and money.

We thank you for your support and encouragement as we reprioritize and reorganize to become the school we have envisioned for the success of our students!

Respectfully,

Safiyyah Shahid
Director/Principal