Once, maybe twice a year a parent will ask principal Nickolas Stefanoff to excuse his child from band class because he believes instrumental music contravenes the teachings of Islam.
That’s not often for a school of 1,200, but when it happens it poses a dilemma for the head of Toronto’s Valley Park Middle School: The Ontario government says children must learn music, but it also says schools must honour a student’s religion when it bumps up against public education.
So Stefanoff strikes the kind of compromise that is becoming more common — and controversial — as schools grow more diverse. [Toronto Star] Read more [via National Secular Society]
