So very confusing

Muslims are taking over San Diego!

Here's what I'm confused about:

1. 7^th and 8^th grade in an elementary school? (Seems unlikely)
2. Is it a "period" an "hour" or "15 minutes"? Islamic prayer generally takes about 5 minutes, 1 hour seems a bit over the top.
3. The teacher claims "Ms. -" lead the prayer, but that isn't consistent with Islamic tradition, and she left before anything even began.
4. The American flag was "rolled up"? Why the would any Muslim do that?
5. Why is closing the blinds without direction so unnerving? If you do anything on a daily basis, wouldn't kids just do it?
6. Has anyone heard of any Muslim complaining about Catholics "doing" rosaries ever?
7. Assimilations? How is changing your religious practices "assimilation"? I wasn't aware that being American was a religion.
8. Doesn't everyone understand yet that Arab does not equal Muslim? And they can't remotely be interchanged?

I also see that the 2006 enrollment was 290 and they state in the story that there is "100 Muslim students" or more than 1/3 of the school, and according to their ethnic breakdown it seems impossible that those 100 Muslim students were "Arabic".

When did people stop learning the details before freaking out? I remember a day when it was considered good practice to check sources and site references, and I long for that day to return.

Update: Apparently in September a nearby "charter" school was merged with Carver and that charter school had an Arabic immersion program. Apparently it happened days before the school opened, and they had no chance to update the curriculum or syllabus. And apparently it is a predominately Somali (not Arab) student population [ San Diego Union-Tribune ]. Apparently the class is all female as well, so my points 1, 2, and 3 above are all cleared up and now make sense. It also seems that the student population has grown to 415 [ Union-Tribune ] due to this merger so we're talking about 1/4 of the school being Muslim.

Update: On the Religion Clause website there are a few comments that I find hard to believe, are there really places in this country where the students are forbidden to say "God" or "Jesus" or carry a bible? In my high-school in an English class we studied the language used in the bible by using bibles that the school owns. I can't imagine that my schooling experience was that radically different (though I have just moved back into Montgomery Country because of the excellent school system). I would recommend anyone who has their child arrested for carrying a bible to school move and move quickly.