Excerpt:
The Khalil Gibran International Academy, the much-embattled Arabic-English bilingual public school in Brooklyn, appears to be losing support.
KGIA opened on Sept. 4 last fall, but since its inception it has been a source of controversy and criticism from people who question the value and mission of an Arabic school in the public school system. Groups have formed to protest the school and its curriculum, including a coalition of community members called "Stop the Madrassa," which calls KGIA "a badly managed and inflammatory educational 'experiment' " on its website. "Madrassa" refers to religious Islamic school.
Meanwhile, some school supporters are calling for the return of founding principal Debbie Almontaser, who resigned after she was quoted in the New York Post defending a school T-shirt that carried the word "intifada," an Arabic word that has been applied to multiple uprisings in the Middle East over the past few decades.
Many people disapproved of Almontaser's statement, fearing that the word "intifada" confirmed the public's initial concerns with the school's potential Islamic undertones.