Today we’d like to introduce you to Lena Dirbashi and Jamilla Awad.
Hi Lena and Jamilla, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today.
Lena Dirbashi, partner, director, curriculum builder, and teacher.
Jamilla Awad, partner, director, head of PreK, and teacher.
We are two friends and equal partners but narrated by Lena Dirbashi.
Our story is short and sweet. So, it’s 2019.
I have two children under the age of four and working full-time at a Fortune 500 company. Jamila is juggling life with three kids, working as a PreK teacher, and taking early childhood classes
About three months before the Covid-19 pandemic, Jamilla asked me to meet her up for bubble tea one evening. We were both very busy and didn’t get to meet often.
As we sat down with our fat straws, Jamilla started updating me about her life before dropping the big news.
“I want to open my own school.”
“That’s great. You would be great at it. Congratulations!” I replied.
She smiled. There’s more.
‘Would you like to be my partner?’ she said with a grin.
I laughed.
“Me? Are you serious? I don’t even have time to get a cat.”
She dropped it. And we continued about other things.
That night, I told my husband about the ‘crazy’ proposal. His response surprised me even more.
“If you say no, I will be her partner,” he said – very seriously.
Did they see something I couldn’t?
That night, I reconsidered the whole thing. My mind started to go in many different directions. I’ve never had a business idea or plan before. I never had any aspirations to be a business owner. But that evening, my mind was brewing a million exciting ideas.
I called Jamilla the next day.
“Yes!” I said.
“What do you mean?”
“Yes. Let’s do it.”
“Are you sure? You were pretty set on no yesterday. Remember you said you can’t even get a cat…”
“Yes. I know. But I changed my mind.”
And our story officially begins.
The next question would be: “What kind of school would we start?”
An Arabic school focused on children and early childhood development. We both come from Arabic-speaking backgrounds, and it was important that we pass down our language to our children. There were virtually 0 exclusive Arabic programs for children in the metroplex.
In fact, there is not a single language school dedicated to Arabic in all of DFW. There are Chinese immersion schools, French, Spanish of course. Even Japanese. But not for Arabic. And Arabic is the 5th most spoken language in the world, shared by over 20 countries. This can’t be right.
As we explored the idea further, it became clear to us that a high-quality early childhood Arabic program was in dire need. So we immediately put our hearts, minds, and imagination at work.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
Well, one major unexpected thing happened right after this meeting: Covid-19 Pandemic.
And time froze. Everything was put on hold. I lost my job. Like most people, we didn’t know what was going on or for how long it would last. Was our dream dead before it began?
But that didn’t stop us. We quickly saw that the world slowing down was an opportunity.
I went back to school to take early childhood and business classes.
Since I lost my job due to the pandemic, I decided to work on teaching Arabic using the early childhood development knowledge from my classes on my first student: my then four-year-old son.
I let my son’s learning curve guide me in teaching Arabic and with a fresh set of eyes and a passion I never knew I had – it was a really rewarding experience.
I couldn’t wait to share it with other children.
Within 6 months, we finished our coursework, and that December, Jamilla and I went to get our business name registered.
In January 2021, we officially launched Arabic Schoolhouse as a weekend-only program for children between the ages of 3-7. Friends started to sign up their kids even before I had a chance to build the registration process on our website. We had 11 students, including my then four-year-old son and Jamilla’s six-year-old boy.
Once we started, the feedback we received was very positive, all the while, more and more parents started to hear about our new initiative. We relocated to a larger facility (a beautiful preschool building) and beefed up our staff.
Is there a quality that you most attribute to your success?
We are unique and the first of its kind in the Dallas Ft. Worth area. Why? Simply because we are an Arabic language school specialized in early childhood. We believe that the Arabic language needs to be celebrated with its own space and focus, and not only be offered as a supplement to a religious curriculum, which is the more typical way children access Arabic in DFW. Our teachers are passionate and present Arabic with engaging material in brightly lit classrooms and with high quality resources we tirelessly collect from around the globe. And that passion can feel very addictive! The numbers have been the true testament to this. In less than two years since we launched, we have grown to almost 90 children and 12 staff members. The waitlist continues to grow, and we are scrambling to keep up with the demand!
- Website: www.arabicschoolhouse.com
- Instagram: arabicschoolhouse
Image Credits
Legacy Photography
Maya Yahfouf
