A Star Tribune newspaper column prompted a state investigation into a Minnesota charter school. A substitute teacher said a school in Inver Grove Heights is blurring the line of separation of church and state.
Being a charter school Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy, or TIZA, is supported by tax dollars. TIZA Executive Director Azad Zaman insisted the school follows state and federal laws. However, TIZA Academy is sponsored by Islamic Relief USA, based in California.
Questions came after substitute teacher Amanda Getz taught at TIZA last month and said, “I’ve been in a lot of schools … (but) never … where they had washing rituals, or they had prayer, or where they had a room where you had to take your shoes off.”
“It is most likely this substitute teacher was sadly mistaken,” said Zaman.
TIZA requires all students to learn Arabic as a second language English.
State law requires the school to fly an American flag during school hours, however no flag flies outside of TIZA Academy. Zaman said he didn’t know how to work the flagpole.
