My School District Opened Its Doors to CAIR—and Parents Were Kept in the Dark

I did not learn about my school district’s relationship with CAIR from the district itself. I learned about it from an investigative report.

If this could happen in one California school district with little or no public disclosure, parents have every reason to ask: Where else has CAIR established similar relationships with public schools across the United States?

As a parent whose children attended San Juan Unified schools in Northern California, I was stunned to learn that between 2022 and 2024, the district accepted nearly $360,000 from the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

This was not a small donation quietly placed into a general education fund. An investigative report by Defending Education found that the district’s relationship with CAIR appears to have included memoranda of understanding, ongoing communication with district staff, and programs connected to students.

In one of numerous emails between CAIR and the school district cited in the report, CAIR representatives told district officials they had launched a six-week leadership development program at Starr King K-8 and hoped to expand it to other schools through a memorandum of understanding with the district.

The report also raises concerns about student privacy. According to documents cited in the report, CAIR requested student names, and district personnel provided them. San Juan Unified’s own website states: “San Juan Unified does not collect or share information about a student’s or family’s immigration status. Student records are protected by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and are only released with a valid court order or subpoena.”

What makes this situation especially troubling is not only what it reveals about one organization and one school district but what it suggests about how such relationships are managed more broadly in public education. I served as the principal of an elementary school in the greater Washington, D.C., area for seven years. During my tenure, our school regularly partnered with outside organizations and private donors. Those partnerships benefited students and enriched educational opportunities. But such relationships require transparency and public accountability, particularly when they involve formal agreements, student programs, access to student information, or substantial sums of money.

Parents should not have to learn about these arrangements through investigative reports. Transparency is what parents have a right to expect. When a public school district enters into formal agreements with an outside organization, receives hundreds of thousands of dollars, and permits programs connected to students, parents and taxpayers deserve a full accounting. Public trust depends on openness, not secrecy.

So why should Californians care about a public school district’s financial relationship with CAIR?

Because although CAIR presents itself as a “civil rights” organization, its leaders have made statements and maintained associations that many Americans—including many Jewish families—find deeply troubling.

Those concerns have been documented by researchers at George Washington University’s Program on Extremism. The researchers noted that CAIR-Ohio Director Khalid Turaani participated in an event that included Majed al Zeer, a Hamas official whom the U.S. government designated as a terrorist for his role in Hamas fundraising efforts.

Broader concerns about CAIR’s leadership and public messaging intensified after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas massacre, when CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad made comments that drew widespread criticism.

Awad said, “I was happy to see people breaking the siege and throwing down the shackles.”

He also stated that Israel “does not have that right to self-defense.”

Awad’s colleague, Turaani, declared in March 2026: “I wish we get rid of Israel once and for all and that our region is safe.”

At a time of rising antisemitism, those statements alone raise serious questions about the judgment to partner with CAIR.

San Juan Unified should immediately release every memorandum of understanding, agreement, reporting requirement, and communication tied to this funding — and explain why parents and taxpayers were kept in the dark.

The public deserves answers in full daylight — and it deserves them now.

This Op-Ed originally appeared in the Washington Examiner and is republished in The Times of Israel with permission.