Fairfield Township, New Jersey, is a perfect object lesson in what happens when entitled minority populations decide that they can play by their own rules.
Al-Ghazaly High School is an Islamic private institution in the New York City suburbs. Local officials approved the school, run by the Islamic Education Foundation, based on the understanding that it would school 90 students in its current property, according to a report from The New Jersey Progress.
Instead, the school has enrolled around 313 students since it was given a Certificate of Re-Occupancy earlier this year, and practically demanded that local authorities increase its authorized student number to 400.
During a planning board meeting last Tuesday, IEF Schools executive director Hayat Jaludi defended her decision to blatantly disregard the student limit based on the fact that, well, kids wanted to be educated.
Sure, she didn’t have permission, but she apparently didn’t think she needed it to flood the school and break the regulations.
“Hold on, hold on — how can you have 314 students in a building when you’re only allowed to have 90?” one of the board members asked.
Jaludi said that “we came into this building assuming that we have the occupancy of whatever enrolled students we have.”
“Unfortunately, um, we attempted to have the 90 student capacity — if there are any educators in this room, you’ll understand and appreciate the importance of not disrupting or interrupting students’ right to be educated.”
Not that they couldn’t be educated elsewhere, mind you. It’s not as if Fairfield is a public school desert, where there’s no education available unless they go to Al-Ghazaly High School.
“We made the decision to try to run the school with that capacity of students and we’ve been successful so far,” she told the board.
“I wouldn’t say we blatantly decided that it doesn’t matter,” she added.
“We are law-abiding citizens. We understand. However, I do have a community of 313 students with an interruption to their education.”
Translation: We’re law-abiding, unless we decide the law is problematic.