http://www.ktrh.com/cc-common/news/sections/newsarticle.html?feed=121300&article=3759909
Muslim Presentation Raises Questions in Friendswood
Junior High students sat through program May 22nd.
By KTRH’s Bill O’Neal
Friday, May 30, 2008
It involved two women who we’re told showed up in muslim dress, discussing Islam with the students at Friendswood Junior High School, including an explanation of what the religion is, as well as its customs. District officials insist it was all done with the best of intentions.
“The administration at the junior high has continued to look for ways in which to teach respect and tolerance,” Karolyn Gephardt with the Friendswood Independent School District said. But Gephardt also admitted some mistakes were made.
“Exact district policy in hosting the presentation was not followed in that in the future, information prior to any presentation gets sent home, especially on cultural awareness,” Gephardt said. With such advance notice, officials said parents would be given the opportunity to ask questions about what will be discussed, or even opt their children out of the presentation altogether.
Gephardt said the presentation has generated a number of calls from parents.
“We’ve heard different things. We’ve had some show support for teaching tolerance in presenting other cultures,” Gephardt said, but quickly added, “Many parents feel they’d like to know ahead of time, and we agree with that. We want them to know ahead of time.”
Copyright © 2003-2008 Clear Channel. All rights reserved.
Fig orchards, satsuma orange orchards, and rice fields once flourished where Friendswood homes now stand. The last vestiges of them and the homes that the Quakers constructed are nearly gone, but the legacy left by those founders and early settlers remains. That legacy is the heritage of a way of life that did more to shape the character of the community than any brick and mortar buildings ever could.
In the spring of 1895 a Quaker named Frank Jacob Brown, who had been an adventuresome buffalo hunter, and a Quaker named Thomas Hadley Lewis, who was a college educated man, felt directed to this area of the Gulf Coast to establish a community dedicated to God. Starting Quaker colonies was a common practice of the religious sect called Quakers or Friends, as they were part of the westward movement across the nation in the middle to late 1800s. (The terms Quaker and Friends are synonymous and used interchangeably.)
When Brown and Lewis came upon this area in Northern Galveston County, they found 1,538 acres of prairie, well drained by Clear Creek, Coward's Creek, Mary's Creek, and Chigger Creek, and beautifully framed with the dense woods along the creeks. Feeling this surely was their "Promised Land," they negotiated with the owner, Galveston banker J. C. League, for a deed of trust, and on July 15, 1895 they recorded the name of the colony at the Court House in Galveston. They named it Friendswood.
Word of the colony spread among Quakers in the northern and midwest states, and soon more than a dozen families joined them. Friendswood developed as a farming community marked by hard work, simple, clean living, and a deep respect for God, the family, and education.
After the colony survived the Galveston Storm of 1900 with no loss of life, they used their sawmill to convert the swaths of trees felled by the storm into lumber for the construction of a two story building they called the Academy. It served them as church, school, and community meeting place until it was replaced by the present stone church building in 1949. The Academy (high school) operated by the Quakers offered a classical curriculum through 1928, and attracted students, in its earliest years, from surrounding towns that had no high school.
From 1895 to 1915, most of the newcomers were Quakers who came to be a part of the Quaker colony.
Education is an important part of every successful community. Friendswood lies within two premier school districts--Clear Creek ISD and Friendswood ISD. Both are rated among the best in Texas.
Unbelievable. CAIR’s prestige and influence has gone UP since 9-11.
“We’ve had some show support for teaching tolerance in presenting other cultures”
Islam, when presented accurately, is about as far away from “tolerant” as it can get.