1. Conclusion and planning target

Planning target (updated 2026-10-17): An ambitious but still reachable goal for fall 2027 might be 50 to 75 students in K to 4, or in more grades if siblings of younger students are given enrollment preference. Thirty could well be the more realistic number, and it should also be treated as the minimum. Thirty is roughly the floor that keeps the school viable (Deliverable 8, 24 to 35 gate), while fifty to seventy-five is the goal the outreach is built to reach. Grade 5 can be added in 2028-29, and sibling preference could bring it in sooner.

Possible January 2027 start (added 2026-10-18): the scholarship deadline for this year has passed, and the board has expressed interest in starting within the current school year. The suggestion here is to analyze a January 2027 start paid by families: a first cohort of about 10 to 20 students at $300 to $400 a month with one teacher (Deliverable 8, section 0A). The enrollment, price and staffing figures are planning assumptions from the advisor, not board decisions. Those students would become the core of the fall class. The family survey asks how many could start in January and at what monthly amount, and the answers set whether the start is worth doing.

Honest read of the public numbers: the worksheet in section 4A puts Muslim K to 5 children who speak Arabic at home near the school at about 150 to 300. Other language groups add to that. The Census¹ place-of-birth proxy shows roughly 900 Pakistan-born and under 200 Bangladesh-born residents in Osceola County (about 2,000 and 1,100 in Orange), with wide margins of error, so Urdu and Bengali likely add a modest amount near the school. Somali and others are not yet counted, and the two established Islamic schools have waitlists that could spill over. Fifty to seventy-five students would be about 17 to 50 percent of the Arabic-only estimate, which makes it a stretch goal that depends on the other groups and on waitlist families, while thirty looks like a realistic base case. Where between 30 and 75 the plan lands will likely be decided by the district language data (PRR-423-2026), the Jumah and Eid counts, the waitlist ZIP codes and the parent survey.

Religion Census cross-check (added 2026-10-17): the 2020 U.S. Religion Census counts 7,533 Muslim adherents in Osceola County, from 9 congregations, or 19.4 per 1,000 residents.² That is a count by mosque, not a headcount. The old school's peak of 74 students was about 1 percent of that number, so a target of 30 is about 0.4 percent and 75 is about 1 percent of the county's adherents. Section 6A has the numbers and the limits.

What the target means for the budget: at $8,000 a student, 30 students is $240,000, 50 is $400,000 and 75 is $600,000 a year. Margins are likely to be thin at every size because staffing grows with each classroom (Money plan, section 12).

What it means for the program: students are likely to be spread across K to 4, often a handful per grade at 30 and closer to a class per grade at 60 to 75. So the program will probably need to be multi-grade at the start, with differentiated instruction, and it can move toward single-grade classes as enrollment grows.

Design response (for Deliverable 3): the proposed answer is a blended model in which a teacher starts each unit and sets goals, students then work through adaptive lessons at their own level, and the teacher conferences, checks mastery and teaches small groups. Screen time is bounded by grade (shorter for K to 2), and the teacher-led block stays the core. Both the paper-based option (the As-Suffah approach) and the computer-based option (a custom platform from Abraham Education) follow the science of learning, and the leader and teachers are trained on whichever the board chooses. Abraham Education can provide the custom platform, and it can run within the retainer. Quran, Arabic and Islamic studies are taught live in mixed-age groups.

Risk to name: a small, mixed-grade school tends to depend on a very capable lead teacher, and the scholarship math looks thin below about 24 students. A larger launch would need more teachers hired earlier, which is why the talent pipeline and Deliverables 4 and 5 ought to start as soon as possible and be a primary focus in the build-up to launch, whether that is in January or August. The 12-student gate from the proposal should stay as the go or no-go decision for opening.

The sections that follow show where these figures come from, starting with the four counties around the school.

2. County picture (ACS 2020-2024)

The county table sets the scale. It gives population, school-age children, the home-language groups most likely to include Muslim families, and household income for each county.

Osceola's Arabic count is about 0.7% of residents age 5 and over, and Orange's is also about 0.7%. Spanish speakers are 47% of Osceola, which likely also shapes competition, since the county has a large Catholic and Christian private-school sector and heavy charter use. Urdu and Bengali speakers cannot be separated in the public language tables (B16001 returned no county values for 2024), so the table below uses a proxy of people born in Pakistan and Bangladesh, taken from the ACS place-of-birth table.³ The proxy has two gaps. It counts only the foreign-born, not their U.S.-born children, who are the ones a K to 5 school enrolls, and it misses Urdu speakers born in India, the Gulf or elsewhere.

Urdu and Bengali proxy: foreign-born residents (ACS 2020 to 2024, 5-year)

In the core ZIPs (foreign-born by place of birth), the Pakistan-born count is 353 (±195) in 34746, 409 (±475) in 34744 and 97 (±295) in 34741, with none counted in 34747, 34758 or 34759. The Bangladesh-born count is 159 (±140) in 34741 and 18 (±43) in 34746, with none counted elsewhere. Because the margins of error are as large as the estimates, treat these as a direction and not a count. Read plainly, Orange County is where the Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities are larger, Osceola has a smaller but real Pakistani presence (roughly 900), and Bangladeshi numbers near the school are very small. The district home-language data (PRR-423-2026) should give the real child counts.

County totals only go so far, so the next step is to look at the ZIP codes closest to the property.

3. Nearby ZIP codes (ACS 2020-2024)

The first table covers the core ring around the property, which takes in Kissimmee, St. Cloud, Poinciana, Four Corners and Davenport.

The Orlando-side ZIPs below make up the second market ring, 25 to 35 minutes away.

Reading the two tables together, Arabic at home clusters in 34741, 34746 and, on the Orlando side, 32837. The 34746/34741 pair holds about 2,300 Arabic speakers, roughly four-fifths of Osceola's county total, which makes it look like the most promising draw zone. Across the core Kissimmee/Poinciana/St. Cloud ring (six ZIPs 34741, 34746, 34747, 34744, 34758, 34759) there are about 41,400 children aged 5 to 14.

Those children are the starting point for asking how large a share of them Hayat actually needs.

4. What the numbers say, and what they do not

The target is small next to that population. At 36 students the school would need about 0.09 percent of the 41,400 children 5 to 14 in the core ring, and at 72 about 0.17 percent. Children are there in numbers, so the public data suggests the base is large enough and the open question is mostly Muslim family density.

The deciding number, then, is probably the count of Muslim families within a reasonable drive. Once the visit gives real numbers, a rough way to size it is families on the Jumah and Eid lists, times children 5 to 11 per family, times the share who would choose a school over a public or charter option (the conversion haircut).

The scenario frame below is for the model, and the blanks get filled in at the visit.

Parent survey responses usually convert at far less than their face value, so plan a haircut. For example, count a "definitely" as 50 to 60 percent likely to enroll and a "probably" as 20 to 25 percent.

The worksheet that follows turns the language counts into an estimate of actual children, which is what the first scenario column needs.

4A. Child-count worksheet (assumptions visible)

Correction to section 2 and 3: the language counts are total residents age 5 and over, not children, and this worksheet converts them to K to 5 children, which is the number the plan needs.

The method is adapted from the method in the book. Home-country fertility for each language group, blended with the U.S. rate, drives the share of the group that is school-age, and the worksheet is run once per group (Arabic, Urdu, Bengali, Somali, other). Each step below builds on the ones before it, and the starting values are there to be replaced.

On a first reading, Arabic alone gives only about 150 to 300 Muslim K to 5 children near the school. Adding Urdu, Bengali, Somali and other groups raises that, although the total is probably thinner than the county totals suggest. Capturing 20 percent of 150 is 30 students, which is why the real counts (district home-language data, Eid and Jumah attendance, the two waitlists) will likely carry more weight than any model.

Because the waitlists at the existing schools could move these numbers more than any assumption, the competitors come next.

5. Competitors and alternatives (public listings, to verify)

The public listings below cover the two Islamic schools in the area and the prior school on the property.

The two schools together enroll about 635 students and both are reported to have waitlists. That is probably the strongest public signal, and it is also the first thing to verify: ask each school for the waitlist count by grade and the home ZIP codes, which would size Hayat's first class directly. Tuition (about 8, 100averageforISLA − memberschoolsnationally)andwhethereachacceptsStepUp@@R5R@@scholarshipsshouldberecorded.Hayat′sscholarshipamountsbygrade(8,336 and $7,752) sit at that national level and above the two local schools' listed prices.

The same families also weigh other options: Osceola County public and charter schools (many are zoned and free), Catholic and Christian private schools that take Step Up, and homeschooling.

See the full competitor analysis (strengths, weaknesses, differentiation, and the new state screening law) in the Competitor Analysis (D2a). The earlier row for an Al-Furqan Academy was removed, because the search found one in Jacksonville, not Central Florida.

With the competition mapped, the practical question becomes how to reach the families this report has located.

5A. Reaching Arabic-speaking families: where to send flyers, ranked

The short version. People-first channels come first and get extra effort: Jumah and Eid handouts, halal groceries, Arabic bakeries and restaurants, pediatric and dental offices, the old Hayat family list (with the right approval), and radius ads in Arabic. Mailed flyers are a smaller supplement aimed at the neighborhoods below. A mailing reaches every home on a route, while most homes in these tracts do not speak Arabic, so mail is likely the most expensive way to reach one Arabic-speaking household.

How the ranking was built. The Census home-language table counts Arabic speakers age 5 and over for each census tract.⁶ Tracts were limited to those whose center is within 10 miles of the school, and distances use tract centers and the school's geocoded location.⁷ The Census Data API supplied the numbers.⁸ Pakistan-born counts come from the place-of-birth table and are a rough guide to Urdu speakers.³ Within 10 miles there are about 5,165 Arabic speakers across all tracts. The twelve tracts below hold about 2,823 of them (55 percent), and the first five alone hold about 1,570 (30 percent).

Read this table carefully. The margins of error are about as large as the estimates, so the order is a direction and not a precise ranking. The Arabic share is low everywhere except tract 12097040809 (about 1 in 10 residents), which makes it probably the best place to mail. Tracts 1 and 12 are large, so only some of their routes are likely to be worth mailing, and the ZIP codes come from the tract centers and need checking in the USPS tool.

Routes. USPS lets you pick carrier routes by area and filter them by age, household size and income, and it shows how many addresses each route has.⁹ It cannot filter by language, so use the tract table to choose where to look, then pick the routes inside those tracts that have the most households with children [VERIFY route counts in the USPS tool]. Keep in mind that an order must exceed 200 pieces.⁹

What a mailing costs. Postage is 26 cents a piece and a simple printed flyer adds roughly 18 to 30 cents, so plan on about 45 to 60 cents all in.¹⁰ The flyer must be a flat and not a small postcard.¹⁰ The three plans below scale up from a small test.

These are estimates and not quotes. At an Arabic share of 3 to 10 percent, a mailing reaches one Arabic-speaking household for roughly $5 to $15, which is why the people-first channels below get the most effort. If you do mail, a bilingual flyer (Arabic on one side, English on the other) is probably the simplest way to make Arabic-speaking families notice it.

People-first channels (do these first, and do them well). These are listed roughly in the order they should be started, with the warmest and cheapest audiences near the top.

1. Jumah and Eid handouts at the masjids near the school, with a table, a sign-up sheet and a QR code. Ask each masjid for permission first.
2. Halal groceries, Arabic bakeries and restaurants, barbers, pharmacies, and pediatric and dental offices in the top tracts. Ask the owner, leave a small stack, and come back in two weeks.
3. The former Hayat families, using the old contact list once the right party approves it (see D7, section 11). This is likely the warmest audience and the cheapest.
4. Radius ads on Facebook and Instagram around the school, limited to people who use Arabic [VERIFY current Meta targeting options]. Start small (a few hundred dollars) and move spending to whichever source brings in the most sign-ups.
5. Word of mouth: ask each family who signs up to forward the link to two families they know.

Make the QR code do real work. Send every scan to a short landing page instead of a bare form, and give each channel its own code so you can see what works. The pieces of that setup are below.

• Page content: a 60 to 90 second video from the founding board or leader about the vision (why the school is reopening, what a day looks like, the teachers, the values), a few photos of the campus, three short answers (grade levels, opening date, tuition help), and then the family interest form. Offer it in English and Arabic.
• One code per source: add a label such as the masjid, the grocery, the mail route or the ad to the web address, so the form records where the family came from. Never put a family's name, phone or email in the web address.
• Print: make the code at least 0.8 inch square with a short web address printed under it, and say what scanning gets them ("2-minute video and sign-up").
• Follow-up: the form should ask for the family's preferred way to be contacted (call, text, email) and say that texts are sent only to families who agree.¹¹ Every marketing email needs a working unsubscribe link.¹²
• Review weekly: count scans and sign-ups by source, drop the weak sources and put the next dollar into the strongest.

Outreach will bring in some of the evidence, but several data sources still need to be pulled before the numbers in this report can firm up.

5B. West African and other Sub-Saharan African families (added 2026-10-17)

The federal enrollment listing for Izzadeen Academy, the school that used to operate at 4992, adds something the Census proxies for Arabic, Urdu and Bengali speakers could not show by themselves.⁴ Of the 74 students, 20 were reported as Black, 35 as Asian, 14 as two or more races and 5 as White. The grade pattern looks like most young schools: 14 in kindergarten and 53 in grades K to 5 overall, against 21 in grades 6 to 10. Twenty Black students is about 27 percent of the enrollment. The listing does not say where those families came from, so it could reflect West African, Somali, Caribbean or African American Muslim families, and any of those would be a useful finding. Because Florida has a sizable West African Muslim population, West African families seem a reasonable first guess, and it is also something the old family list and the Friday Jumah conversations can confirm directly. [VERIFY with the old school's family list or registration records] It is also a hint, not proof, that this part of the market was already reachable at this address and may be underserved by the two Orange County schools.

The Census can say a little about this, though not much. It cannot identify Muslims, and it counts people born in a country, so the estimates below leave out children born in the United States to African immigrant parents, who are the K to 5 students the school wants, and they also leave out African American Muslim families altogether.³ With those limits in mind, the table shows foreign-born residents by place of birth.⁸

Several readings are possible. Most West African families in the area live in Orange County and the northern edge of the 10-mile circle, where Ghana- and Liberia-born residents outnumber Nigeria-born residents, and Nigeria is the largest source in Florida as a whole. Only some of these countries have large Muslim populations. Senegal, Sierra Leone and several countries grouped under "other Western Africa" (such as Guinea, Mali and the Gambia) are mostly Muslim, Nigeria is roughly split, and Ghana and Liberia have a Muslim minority, so many of the people counted nearby are probably not Muslim. [VERIFY religious composition by country with a source such as Pew Research Center] People born in Sudan and elsewhere in Eastern Africa add to the picture, with about 830 Eastern Africa-born residents within 10 miles, but Somalia is not broken out separately at tract level.

The tracts with the most West African-born residents within 10 miles are listed below, using the tract centers and school location described in section 5A.⁷ These are rough, because the margins of error on small tract counts run from about 180 to 240 people.

Tract 12097042100 is the closest, at about 3 miles, and it also appears in the Arabic-speaker ranking in section 5A (rank 12), so a flyer route there could reach both groups, although the Arabic numbers there are small.

For the plan, the Izzadeen numbers suggest some market here and the Census suggests it is modest and spread out, with a few hundred West African-born Muslims at most within reach and more once their US-born children and African American families are included. A sensible next step is to ask the masjid, the old family list and Friday Jumah attendees which West African communities already attend, and to learn which languages (French, Wolof, Hausa, Yoruba, Arabic) families actually use before spending on materials in any of them. TBD

6. Data to pull (status as of 2026-10-17)

This is the list of public and district data the estimate needs. Items marked done have been pulled and are used in section 6A.

1. 2020 U.S. Religion Census¹ (ARDA) Muslim adherents for the counties. Done. Read from the live ARDA pages for Osceola, Orange, Polk, Lake and Seminole, 2010 and 2020 (section 6A).
2. Osceola County School District home-language counts (Arabic, Urdu, Bengali, Somali and others) by grade and school. Requested 2026-10-17 through the district portal, reference PRR-423-2026. Orange County Public Schools request still to file. This gives the child count directly.
3. ACS place of birth (B05006) and language (C16001) for the core ZIPs are in sections 2 and 3. Ancestry (B04006) and children by nativity are still to pull. Scholarship income rules are done (section 6A).
4. Florida private school counts, competitor enrollment and scholarship amounts. Mostly done. Tuition for the Islamic schools and the Osceola scholarship student count could not be found in public sources and need a call or a records request.
5. Drive-time rings from 4992 W Irlo Bronson Memorial Hwy. Done as a first pass (section 6A). Free-flow times, not rush hour.
6. Growth. Mostly done. County and city estimates, projections and permits are in section 6A. Poinciana and Four Corners have no estimate after the 2020 census.
7. Transportation reality: no buses in the base plan, so the 15 and 25 minute rings are the main market.

Public data can only take the estimate so far. The evidence most likely to decide the target comes from the community itself.

6A. What the new data adds

↑ Religion Census (ARDA)

The Religion Census is the one public source that counts Muslims directly. It is built from reports by religious bodies, and for Muslims the data came from a mosque survey led by Ihsan Bagby.¹³ Adherents are members, their children and others who take part. So it counts people tied to a mosque and likely misses Muslims who do not attend one. That last point is my reading and ARDA does not state it. ARDA also warns that collection methods change between years, so the 2010 and 2020 figures are not perfectly comparable.

Sources: ARDA county reports for Osceola in 2020 and 2010, and the matching Orange pages.²¹⁴¹⁵ Read off the live pages on 2026-10-17. Polk and Seminole show the same 2010 row (2 congregations, 2,794 adherents) on ARDA's own pages, which looks like a source quirk, so treat those two 2010 figures with caution.

What it says:

• Osceola has the highest Muslim share of the five counties, 19.4 per 1,000 residents, about 1.5 times Orange's rate.
• Osceola's adherent count fell about 10 percent from 2010 to 2020 (8,382 to 7,533) while the county grew about 45 percent. Orange grew about 46 percent in adherents. The Osceola drop could be real, or could come from how the 2020 count was collected. Do not read it as a fact until the congregations are asked.
• Osceola and Orange together hold about 25,900 adherents, and Seminole adds about 4,400.
• Pew's 2023-24 survey puts Muslims at about 2 percent of the Orlando metro, but with a margin of 8.9 points on 253 respondents, so it cannot be used for sizing.¹⁶

Rough cross-check on children. About 13.5 percent of Osceola residents are aged 5 to 14 (57,871 of 427,415), so ages 5 to 11 are roughly 9.5 percent, taking seven of those ten years. Applying that to Osceola's adherents gives about 700 Muslim children of K to 5 age. Orange's share of children is lower (12.0 percent aged 5 to 14, so about 8.4 percent aged 5 to 11), which gives about 1,500 there (my arithmetic, and Muslim families skew younger, so both may run low). The Arabic-speaker worksheet in section 4A gave 150 to 300 near the school. The two are measuring different things, since the Religion Census¹ counts all Muslim groups in the county and the worksheet counts one language near the school. The truth for the draw area likely sits between them.

What it means for the target. At 700 children countywide, 30 students is about 4 percent and 75 is about 11 percent. The old school at its peak (74 students, all grades) was about 1 percent of the adherents. These are the same order of size, so the targets in section 1A look reachable and not inflated, but they depend on drawing a real share of families from outside the immediate ZIPs.

↑ Schools and scholarships

• Private schools: Osceola has 95 private schools with 12,012 students, Orange 268 with 37,356, Seminole 81 with 13,840, Polk 116 with 15,945. Florida has 3,252 with 496,519.¹⁷ FLDOE does not verify these figures.
• Islamic school enrollment: Ibn Seena Academy 346 students (2021-22, K to 11), MAGO 267 (2021-22, K to 8), Izzadeen Academy 74 (year not stated, K to 10).¹⁸¹⁹²⁰ Other aggregator pages list different numbers for Ibn Seena (255 and 317), so treat all three as rough. No other Islamic school in Orange, Osceola, Polk or Seminole was confirmed. Tuition for these schools could not be found.
• Other private schools in 34746 include Central Pointe Christian Academy (509), Reborn Christian Academy (462), Kids R Kids (185), Living Water (114) and Peace Lutheran (82).²⁰ They are what a family compares Hayat to on price and convenience.
• Scholarship amount for 2026-27, Osceola residents: $8,336 in kindergarten to grade 3 and $7,752 in grades 4 and 5.²¹ The blend is about $8,219 for K to 4 and $8,141 for K to 5, so the $8,000 per student used in the budget is slightly conservative (Deliverable 8, section 1A). The school is paid the lower of its tuition or the scholarship amount.²²
• Eligibility: the scholarship is open to any public-school-eligible student regardless of household income.²³ Priority goes first to renewals, then to families up to 185 percent of the federal poverty level (61, 050forafamilyoffour), thentofamiliesupto400percent(132,000 for four).²⁴ Osceola's median household income is $72,637,²⁵ so a typical family falls in the middle tier. The priority chart was read from a PDF whose layout was scrambled, so the dollar figures need a check against the PDF before they go in a flyer.
• Not found: the number of Osceola children on the scholarship. Step Up⁵ publishes only statewide totals (310,777 funded students in 2025-26 on the two main scholarships). Ask Step Up or the schools.

↑ Growth

• Osceola County reached 484,915 residents on April 1, 2025 (UF BEBR), up about 25 percent from 388,656 in the 2020 census.²⁶ The state projects 562,892 by 2030 and 626,441 by 2035.²⁷
• Kissimmee city had 87,664 in 2025 (79,226 in 2020) and St. Cloud 71,242 (58,964). Poinciana had 69,309 and Four Corners 56,381 in the 2020 census, and no later official estimate exists for either.²⁶
• Osceola permitted between about 5,800 and 10,000 new housing units a year from 2019 to 2025 (7,366 in 2025).²⁸
• Against that, the county's public school enrollment has fallen from about 76,000 to about 72,300 since 2022-23, per local news reporting, so growth in population has not translated into growth in public enrollment. Families may be choosing private, charter or home options, which is the market Hayat competes in, but this is an inference.

↑ Drive-time rings from the school

Drive times from the school to each ZIP's center point, computed on the OpenStreetMap road network in free-flow conditions.²⁹³⁰ Rush-hour trips will take longer, so treat the 15 minute ring as the realistic daily-commute ring.

Only ZIPs already in the tables in section 3 are totaled, so the ring totals leave out ZIPs such as 34743 and 32819 and run low. The center point of a ZIP is not where its people live, so each time is an average.

Two reading notes. Arabic speakers are concentrated close to the school, with 2,210 inside 15 minutes against 903 in the 25 to 35 minute ring. And Poinciana (34758 at 29 minutes, 34759 at 37) sits outside the comfortable commute, which is a problem for a school that runs no buses in its base plan.

7. Local evidence to collect (Michael, visit and Friday Jumah)

Michael can gather these items during the visit and around the Friday Jumah announcement, and together they should give a much better sense of how large the community is.

• Jumah headcount over three weeks (reported 50 to 70), and how many are parents of children K to 5.
• Eid prayer attendance (probably the best single count of the community's size).
• Weekend-school and Quran-class enrollment, by grade.
• Facebook intake survey: one family so far; set a target and a deadline, and add the board/volunteer interest line.
• Waitlist counts and ZIPs from the two other Islamic schools.
• Former Izzadeen families who are still in the area and what became of them.
• Announcement script, a paper survey at Jumah, a QR link, and a short follow-up call list.

8. Items I could not confirm

A few things could not be confirmed from public sources: the exact count of Muslim residents in any county, Urdu and Bengali speaker counts, the current enrollment and waitlist numbers at competitors, and whether Urdu and Bengali speaker counts can be had below county level. That last point is a data limit, because the detailed table B16001 is blank for tracts and the collapsed table C16001 has Arabic only.