Fairfax County supervisors are expected Monday to extend the lease of a Saudi prep school whose curriculum came under fire from a federal panel last year.
Some supervisors said they see no reason not to approve the lease for the Islamic Saudi Academy, which expires this summer.
The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom in October urged the State Department to close the facility, which is linked to the Saudi Embassy, if it couldn’t prove its texts weren’t espousing intolerance or violence.
Commission spokeswoman Judith Ingram said Wednesday those concerns still stand.
The recommendation was based largely on a review of textbooks in schools in Saudi Arabia that promoted jihad and sanctioned violence against non-Muslims.
“What we had been recommending and asking for is for the books to be made public for an independent analysis, and as far as we’re concerned that hasn’t happened,” Ingram said.
Nevertheless, the Board of Supervisors is likely to renew the lease for the academy’s Richmond Highway campus, which sits on the site of the former Mount Vernon High School, for at least two years.
“Nobody has presented to us any substantive reason [to reject the lease extension], based on what’s been taught at the school,” said Chairman Gerry Connolly, a Democrat.
Sully District Supervisor Michael Frey, a Republican, said the academy has always had a good relationship with the community, and expressed a reluctance for the board to “get too deeply imbedded in some of the theological or religious teachings.”
“Short of somebody coming out with some evidence that says ‘this is from yesterday’s lesson plan, and they’re teaching Israel must be destroyed,’ I would say I’m ready to go ahead,” Frey said.
Shortly after the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom’s report, Mount Vernon District Supervisor Gerald Hyland, whose district encompasses the main campus, ordered a county-level review of the curriculum. Hyland could not be reached for comment Wednesday, but Frey said he believes his colleague is comfortable with the results of that review.
The commission is still reviewing some of the school’s texts it acquired independently, Ingram said. The State Department also is reviewing the materials, according to a statement from the agency.
No one who could speak for the school or Saudi Embassy could be reached Wednesday.
