During Ramadan, Muslim Students Find Peace, Discipline and Community

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Barwari is one of 10 teachers who signed up to offer her classroom as a food-free zone during lunchtime. Jenna Hagengruber, the school’s director of activities, created a sign-up sheet for teachers, so that students who are fasting would not have to sit in the cafeteria and watch their peers eat.

It’s one of several accommodations arranged by the administration for Muslim students. The school has also reserved space on campus where students can pray in the afternoon, since one of the five daily prayers falls during the school day. Hagengruber created a sign up sheet for students to receive electronic hall passes granting them permission to leave class for 15 minutes to pray. More than 80 students signed up.

For Barwari, witnessing these accommodations is a full-circle moment. She recalled growing up attending a public school in Nashville with a small Muslim population and hiding the fact that she was fasting from her peers.

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A couple of days later John Overton High School held its highly anticipated second annual iftar, an event where students, families and community members gathered on campus to break fast together. Kozheen Koyee is the president of the Muslim Student Association. He’s a confident speaker and natural leader. Over two years, the MSA has grown from 10 members to 70.

“I would give credit to Kozheen and the leadership of MSA,” Hagengruber, who leads the Student Government Association, said. “I love the ownership that Kozheen and MSA have taken.”

The SGA helped decorate the large cafeteria. They covered the long tables with gold table runners and paper placements for kids to draw on. They painted signs in gold and blue proclaiming, “Ramadan Mubarak” and “Ramadan Kareem.” They blew up gold, blue, black and white balloons. The entire cafeteria was decked out in stars, moons, lanterns and string lights.

By the time the doors opened to guests at 4:30 p.m., the cafeteria had been transformed.

{snip} Overton’s student population represents 56 countries and 47 languages, and that diversity was on display in the table spread.

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Muslim families across Nashville gathered on March 20 to celebrate Eid al-Fitr, the holiday marking the end of Ramadan. Eid is not a holiday in the Metro Nashville Public Schools calendar, so mosques prepare permission slips for students to request an excused absence.

The American Muslim Advisory Council submitted a letter to MNPS with suggested accommodations for Muslim students throughout Ramadan. Those accommodations include permission to skip strenuous physical activities, a designated lunch area, and mindfulness of students’ fatigue. The letter suggested that teachers share books or activities to teach all students about Ramadan.

“It is a Muslim’s right to fast and receive reasonable accommodations at school or work,” the letter stated.

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