Debbie Almontaser was publicly drummed out of her job as the founder and principal of the Khalil Gibran International Academy, but she is now the one on the receiving end of a defamation lawsuit filed by members of an organization who attempted to prevent the dual-language school from opening. Sara Springer, Irene Alter and Pamela Hall are members of a group called the Stop the Madrassa Coalition. They're alleging that they were defamed by Almontaser,......

Two members of a three-judge federal appellate court panel took the city to task yesterday for removing the principal of the Khalil Gibran International Academy. Debbie Almontaser, who helped found the dual-language school with an emphasis on Arab culture, stepped down before the school opened last fall, after controversy over remarks she made in the NY Post. Last summer, Almontaser had commented on t-shirts with "intifada" printed on them, made by a youth group she......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a possible abduction on Warwick St. and Livonia Ave. in Brooklyn, a police involved shooting on West Kingsbridge Rd. in the Bronx, and an abduction on 33rd St. and 5th Ave. in Manhattan. A contestant on Deal or No Deal from Bayonne, NJ tells host Howie Mandel that the godawful smell around there is from the dump on Staten Island. Residents of Richmond County are not amused. Two pitbulls,......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: an unusual elevator rescue on Washington Ave. in Brooklyn, a pipe explosion on Richmond Terrace on Staten Island, and a person fatally struck by an A train at Van Siclen and Pitken Ave. in Brooklyn. NYC already has 91,000 practicing attorneys, but we can expect a lot more. Nearly 11,000 freshly minted JDs sat for the bar this summer and more than 70% of them passed. A 63-year-old man......

Debbie Almontaser, the erstwhile head and founder of Brooklyn's Khalil Gibran International Academy, will sue the city for violating her freedom of speech. She also claims Mayor Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Joel Klein forced her to resign as principal under threat of closing the dual-language school. The KGIA, named after the Lebanese Christian poet, teaches students Arabic and English and aims to foster cross-cultural understanding, but critics accused Almontaser of establishing a madrassa to indoctrinate......

Mayor Bloomberg, Schools Chancellor Klein, City Council Speaker Quinn, and other city and school officials celebrated the first day of school yesterday with an appearance at P.S. 53 in the Bronx. P.S. 53 was selected because it will be receiving almost a half million dollars more in funding, due to Bloomberg's "fair student funding reforms." The Mayor happily said, "We are becoming the poster child for what you should do with a school system that's......

The Khalil Gibran International Academy––a new bi-lingual school dedicated to teaching children Arabic and instructing students about Middle Eastern history––received a new principal after the abrupt departure of its founder Debbie Almontaser in a flap over a t-shirt. The new interim principal is Danielle Salzberg, who is an Orthodox Jewish woman that has been working with the Dept. of Education to establish the Khalil Gibran school. The school's founder stepped down last week after she......

Debbie Almontaser, the erstwhile founder and principal of the Khalil Gibran International Academy, resigned this week after controversy arose over a t-shirt. With less than a month before kids report to school, Almontaser resigned when she failed to initially denounce a t-shirt that was being sold by a group called Arab Women Active in Arts and Media that read "Intifada NYC". Almontaser said that the word "intifada" literally meant "shrugging off" in Arabic and was......

We've written a few pieces about the Khalil Gibran International Academy's attempt to find a physical home. The dual-language Arabic public school that has declared itself non-religious is, nonetheless, having trouble finding and sharing space with educational neighbors, who fear that they'll be hosting a terrorist academy. The fact that Khalil Gibran was an American-educated Christian poet seems to have drifted off into the ether of historical irrlevancy. The Department of Education initially wanted to......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a bank robbery on Lenox Ave. in Manhattan, a shooting on Farragut Rd. in Brooklyn, and a home invasion robbery on 84th St. in Queens. The City honored Jay-Z's mom, Gloria Carter, today for her work overseeing the Shawn Carter Scholarship Fund, a college-oriented educational charity that helps disadvantaged and non-traditional students. A Queens man, already under arrest for threatening a police officer with a gun in front of......

Few things get NYC parents more antsy than making sure their children get into the "right" school. And whether it means camping out for days to get into a public school or forcing the mightiest Wall Street tycoon to corrupt himself in addition to forking over millions to reserve a spot in a private sandbox, getting into the school of one's choice can make applying to Harvard look like child's play. The dream of acceptance,......

Before a single student has been enrolled, the Khalil Gibran International Academy is generating a significant amount of controversy. Debby Almontaser is a New York City educator with a Yemeni-Muslim background. She hopes to open an Arabic-themed school to build bridges and increase understanding between different cultures, but so far the opposite has been the result. Conservative commentators have criticized the undertaking as an effort to open a publicly funded madrassa, which is generally interpreted......

One of the 40 new schools the city is opening in the fall will be the first public school dedicated teaching the Arabic language and culture. The NY Times reports that half of the classes at the Khalil Gibran International Academy will eventually be taught in Arabic. It will be located in Brooklyn, though it's unclear where yet. Principal Debbie Almontaser says the school will start out with just sixth graders, but will eventually have......