Just below is an email I received from a friend of Donna Garner’s, who is the author of the information. Today I also received a copy of this article, which is titled: Mansfield Arabic Program on Hold.

If that isn’t the article that comes up, please copy and paste the title into Google search and you can find it that way.

I also talked with a friend who attended a Mansfield Republican club mtg last night. She reported that Terry Moore, who’s a MISD board member, was in attendance, and he claimed that the “mandatory” requirement was not true, and never had been. It was a “reporter’s error” (even though it was clearly on the MISD Web site that way. Today, the Web site no longer carries that wording).

The site also carries the information that the next regularly scheduled ISD Bd Mtg will be on 2/22. No mention of time or address, but I should think that couldn’t be too hard to learn.

I agree with Ms. Garner’s take on this. If a school is going to teach Arabic (which, personally, I think is a good idea), it should be an elective class and it should be taught by Arabic-speaking non-Muslims. As for the “culture,” that’s code, as far as I’m concerned, for indoctrination into Islam.

Re: Mansfield ISD’s decision to mandate the teaching of Arabic
Date: 2.9.11
From: Donna Garner
Bottomline: Mansfield ISD (south of Ft. Worth, Texas) made a terrible decision to apply and receive a five-year, $1.3 million Foreign Language Assistance Program (FLAP) grant from Obama’s U. S. Department of Education.

The Arabic grant came with strings attached. Students in two Mansfield ISD schools were mandated to spend 100 minutes per week to study the Arabic language, culture, government, art, traditions, and history.

The Arabic program was to start this semester with the curriculum to be integrated throughout the school environment. The mandated Arabic program was to begin in elementary and intermediate schools and then to be offered for language credit in the higher grade levels.

Mansfield ISD parents were not told about the grant and about the Arabic-mandated curriculum until this last Monday night, 2.7.11.

When Mansfield ISD was confronted by outraged Mansfield ISD parents, the district communications personnel were not well equipped to answer the questions satisfactorily and ended up �stumbling� around in an attempt to cover up for their shortsighted decision.

Below I have posted seven pieces to this story.

(1) First are the links to the CBS-DFW (2.7.11) and Ft. Worth Star-Telegram (2.8.11) articles:

http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2011/02/07/mandatory-arabic-classes-coming-to-mansfield/

http://www.star-telegram.com/2011/02/08/2834067/mansfield-school-district-backs.html

(2) Second is the response that I posted at the top of the CBS-FW article. I sent this to my e-mail list and posted it on Facebook: “The fact that Mansfield ISD is making Arabic MANDATORY in several schools is highly questionable, particularly since the parents appear to be unaware that the district had made such a decision. If Arabic is offered in public schools at all, it should be totally an optional choice for students and their parents to make. Here is the link to the Q&A put out by Mansfield ISD: http://www.mansfieldisd.org/curriculum/foreign-language/arabic.htm

(3) Third is a summary of what was said when Bud Kennedy, reporter at the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram, interviewed me on the telephone after he contacted me about my Facebook comments:

Subject: My interview with Bud Kennedy of the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram