Atop a white step stool, a diminutive Abdul-Munim S. Jitmoud preps students lined up for a procession to Lexington Universal Academy’s back-to-school rally. As LUA’s new principal, it’s Jitmoud’s first day, too, though you can’t tell it.
He’s at ease in his new surroundings, teasing the eighth-graders at the back of the line.
“Wake up, eighth grade,” he calls, and suddenly the responses from the end of the hallway grow louder.
The school’s 92 students, from kindergarten through eighth grade, recite in Arabic and English as they march through the school’s main corridor and out to its back lawn, carrying signs, international flags and a rainbow of colored flowers.
Once they are reassembled, a representative from each grade brings their flowers together in a common vase.
“You see, it’s starting to be more beautiful because of the variety of flowers. You can see the beauty within the diversity,” Jitmoud says, as the bouquet comes together.
Unity through diversity: It’s a theme the new principal plans to emphasize throughout the year at Lexington Universal Academy, an Islamic School on Nicholasville Road entering its fifth year.
To drive home the point during the rally, Jitmoud asks the students to imagine how boring the world would be if everyone looked like him. He caught several of them laughing, imagining a world full of “little Asian men,” he said.
“God makes everyone so beautiful in different ways,” he said. “That’s why we say unity in diversity.”
A native of Thailand and a lifelong Muslim, Jitmoud first came to the United States in the early 1970s to attend the University of South Florida. After receiving his bachelor’s degree in geography there, he went on to pursue master’s and doctoral degrees in education and education administration at Truman State University in Missouri and at Ball State University in Indiana.
It was at Truman State University that Jitmoud met Missouri native Linda Kolocotronis, who later converted to Islam. They have been married for 26 years and have six sons.
After Jitmoud received his doctorate in 1983, he led and helped establish Islamic schools in Seattle, Kansas City, Bangkok and Milwaukee before Linda’s allergies in Wisconsin led the couple to look for another place to call home last year.
At that time, LUA was seeking a new principal.
The couple moved to Lexington just last month with their two youngest sons, one a seventh-grader at Lexington Universal Academy, the other a freshman at Tates Creek High. Their oldest son lives in Spain with his wife and daughter; their other sons live elsewhere in the United States.
So far, the family is enjoying putting down roots in Lexington, Jitmoud said. And the school has been thrilled to have him, said Jenny Sutton-Amr, a mother of two students and a member of the school board who served on the school’s principal recruitment committee.
“He has impressed everyone who has met him. The students love him, and he’s already put his own personal stamp on the school,” Sutton-Amr said, noting that, when Jitmoud visited the school last spring during his interview process, the entire student body paid rapt attention as he shared stories during the noon prayer service.
“Afterward, there was a circle of kids following him around the rest of the day,” Sutton-Amr recalled.
Islamic education
Jitmoud has set high goals for the school, which has grown in attendance and expanded a grade level each year since it opened with just grades kindergarten through four in 2002. This is the first year the school has included an eighth grade; it does not plan to expand beyond the middle school level. Tuition is currently $3,700 a year for one child.
The school follows the state curriculum and also includes religious instruction and Arabic language instruction for all of its students. Jitmoud aims, he said, to keep the school’s curriculum challenging, on par with an international curriculum like that of Taiwan or Japan, especially in math and science.
Drawing on the native backgrounds of its families and staff -- who hail from 16 different countries from Algeria and Brazil to Jordan, Nicaragua and Pakistan -- the school celebrates is international cultural flavor as it strives to create a truly “universal” atmosphere, Jitmoud said.
Jitmoud said LUA is one of three Islamic schools in Kentucky; the other two schools are in Louisville. Many of the roughly 500 Islamic schools in the United States, he said, opened in just the last 30 years.
For Sutton-Amr, it was the smaller class sizes and the chance for her sons to receive Arabic language instruction and learn about their cultural heritage that made her switch them from Rosa Parks Elementary to LUA last year.
“The smaller class sizes let teachers give the students a lot more individual attention, and the closeness of the principal to the students -- the last principal knew every student by first name -- gives the school a feeling of a family atmosphere,” she said.
As parents themselves, the Jitmouds feel that choosing an Islamic school offers two distinct benefits for their children: helping them develop their Islamic identity and offering them an opportunity to learn more about Islam, said Linda Jitmoud, herself a retired educator.
She now writes and publishes fiction and non-fiction books under the name Jamilah Kolocotronis about Muslims living in America. Her young adult fiction book Innocent People discusses the backlash, prejudice and suspicions one Muslim American family faces in the wake of the terrorist attacks on 9/11.
“The period from (age) eight to 12 is the most important in helping the child form an identity. When they attend school with other Muslim children, and have teachers who also practice Islam, this helps them feel that they are not ‘strange’ or ‘weird,’ even though Muslims are in the minority,” she said.
“Something as simple as having their names pronounced correctly is very important,” she added, noting that their fifth son, Salahuddin, a freshman at Tates Creek, is for the first time having to tell his teachers how to pronounce his name.
It’s just one of the many adjustments he’s facing in making the switch from Islamic education to public school, but his mother says she feels confident that the strong Islamic foundation he received in his first nine years of schooling will help him.
“All of our children can read and write Arabic fluently, they have some knowledge of Islamic history, and they’ve memorized sections of the Quran,” she said. “I’ve met some adults who had Muslim parents but had to struggle to learn Islam after they were older. Because I’m a convert, I also struggled, at the age of 23, to learn even the basics. My children are still far ahead of me.”
Forging an Identity
“Islam is everything for me. Islam is my life,” said the soft-spoken but fervent Jitmoud, when talking about the importance of his faith. “That’s why I feel when I serve Islam education, I serve God. I feel called to bring his message of the oneness of God to these young, pure souls.”
Jitmoud hopes to make the school “a complete package,” he said.
“I want it to be an institution that promotes Islamic education, the best in moral character, and the best in academics. I want the students to contribute to society, not be parasites of society,” he said. “We want our students to be thankful to God for granting them this great opportunity to live in this great land.”
But above all, Jitmoud said, he hopes to help his students begin to understand their own unique identity as Americans and as Muslims.
“I want them to maintain their identity as a Muslim, meanwhile I want them to be the best citizens of this land where they are born,” he said. “So I made a slogan for them. I say, ‘America is my land. Islam is my life. Muslim is who I am.’”
Have a question?
To submit a question about the Muslim faith, send an e-mail to rrichardson@herald-leader.com.
Insight on Islam: Today’s story is the first installment of a three-part series highlighting Central Kentucky’s Muslim community. Next week, the series will focus on the region’s mosque. On Sept. 8, read excerpts from an interview with one of the leaders of the Islamic community.
