Magnolia Science Academy - A Gulen Charter School: Magnolia Science Academy #5 Denied Renewal by LAUS...

Magnolia Science Academy - A Gulen Charter School: Magnolia Science Academy #5 Denied Renewal by LAUS...: Magnolia Science Academy #5 application to LACOE is on this link it's very long but the relevant areas start pg 22 for the Statement ...

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Magnolia Science Academy #5 Denied Renewal by LAUSD Caprice Young

Gulen Charter School Real Estate Scam and Self Dealings Rochester Academy Charter School UPDATE 1/24/2018**

A real estate holding company based in Syracuse cleared more than $300,000 in profit at the expense of a charter school in Greece earlier this year, according to real estate and financial records obtained by the Democrat and Chronicle.

Both the company, Terra Science and Education Inc., and Rochester Academy Charter School, which opened in 2008 as the first local charter high school, have evident connections with each other, and broadly with the nebulous network of Fethullah Gulen, the reclusive and controversial Turkish cleric living in exile in rural Pennsylvania.

Both the school and Terra deny there is a connection, but the D&C investigation has found numerous examples of overlapped personnel, lax invoicing, a lack of auditing and shared community affiliations.

Many Gulen-suspected schools across the country have entered into questionable real estate transactions with related parties, something critics label an attempt to siphon off the public money charter schools receive for their pupils. The importance for Monroe County residents, though, is the disbursal of hundreds of thousands of public dollars to a connected organization.

Such transactions, while not illegal, point to an oversight weakness in charter schools, which rely more heavily on contracted space and services than traditional public schools.

The Democrat and Chronicle has rebuilt the timeline of the deal that generated the substantial return for Terra. 

• May 2016: Terra Science and Education Inc. buys a shuttered school building on Latta Road from Our Mother of Sorrows Church for $700,000.
• August 2016 to June 2017: Terra spends between $1.2 million and $1.5 million in renovations. Rochester Academy Charter School (RACS) leases the building from Terra in the meantime for $30,000 a month, paying a total of $300,000.
• June 2017: RACS purchases the newly renovated building for $2.5 million — at least $300,000 more than Terra's costs for purchase and renovation, not including the lease payments.

The fat profit margin for Terra comes from public funding intended for the hundreds of students attending the school — about $5 million in 2016-17, and growing as the school adds grade levels each year.

Under normal circumstances, if a developer turned a $300,000 profit after owning a property less than one year and selling it to a public school, it would be evidence of ruthless commercial skill for the one party and hapless poor luck for the other.

When there is evidence the two parties are connected, it is a different story.

The charter school said it couldn't have purchased the property any other way, because its charter had not yet been renewed and banks were wary to lend. It pointed out that the current mortgage payments will save it $2.5 million in 15 years compared to the erstwhile lease payments.

It did, though, receive what it termed a reasonable mortgage offer several months before its charter re-authorization.

Rochester Academy Charter School insists it has no formal relationship with Terra, much less with Fethullah Gulen. The real story, its leaders say, is a graduation rate above 90 percent, one of the highest marks for schools serving mostly Rochester students. 

"RACS is governed by seven independent board members; they make the decisions," the school's Executive Director Mehmet Demirtas said.

Demirtas and a number of other RACS leaders have connections with other Gulen-linked organizations. The RACS board president, Mahmut Gedemenli, was Terra's treasurer in 2010 and 2011, and two other leaders have been identified as representing Rochester's Turkish Cultural Center, an explicitly Gulenist organization.

"I may be a part of any social group, but that doesn’t make the school whatever you call it," Demirtas said.

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Rochester Academy Charter School principal Mehmet Demirtas with a mural a student is in the process of painting in a classroom at former Our Mother of Sorrows School in Greece.  (Photo: MAX SCHULTE/@maxrocphoto/staff photographer)

Over the last 20 years, dozens of charter schools (a minority of the overall sector) have opened across the United States with a few things in common. They're run and partly staffed by Turkish-Americans with professional and personal ties to Gulenist organizations; they sign sizable contracts with Gulen-related entities; and they deny any Gulen affiliation.

Rochester Academy Charter School is one such school.

Allegations of a national or international Gulen network are based not on formal affiliations — RACS denies any connection whatsoever — but rather a well-established pattern of tactics in procurement, hiring and real estate.

One is reliance on Gulen-suspected contractors such as Apple Educational Services, with which RACS has a $15,000 no-bid annual contract for tablet computers. Likely Gulen schools elsewhere in New York have large contracts with the company as well.

A 2013 audit from the New York State Comptroller found RACS had issued split payments to four related companies in a bid to avoid seeking board approval.

Demirtas said this month he couldn't recall who the four vendors were. The Comptroller's office, though, identified them this month as four arms of a New Jersey business co-founded in 2009 by Murat Kaval, the CEO of the openly Gulenist Peace Islands Institute and a former public relations officer for Apple Educational Services.

Another recurring pattern is the widespread use of H1-B skilled worker visas to recruit employees from Turkey. RACS has applied for five H1-B skilled worker visas since 2013, more than every other Rochester-area K-12 school combined.

Former Gulen-suspected school employees elsewhere have alleged they were forced to give up part of their salary in exchange for the visa, a charge those schools have denied.

More:Investigation: New Jersey charter school leaders linked to Turkish cleric

Demirtas said the school has used the H1-B visas simply to recruit for workforce needs it could not fill locally, including a science teacher and IT administrator.

More generally, he wrote in an email: "We routinely network with other local and regional charter schools, as well as social organizations. To imply that these professional and social intersections are inappropriate is irresponsible."

How the deal unfolded

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Rochester Academy Charter School, on Latta Road in Greece. (Photo: MAX SCHULTE/@maxrocphoto/staff photographer)

Rest of the story here

http://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/2017/12/09/terra-science-and-education-profits-rochester-academy-charter-school-deal-fethullah-gulen/919916001/

A secretive network of charter schools allegedly tied to the US-based Turkish cleric Fethullah Gülen were featured on a recent segment aired by VICE News on HBO on January 18, 2018, including interviews with former employees and parents of the Syracuse Academy of Science.

The segment featured an interview with international lawyer Robert Amsterdam, who acts on behalf of the Republic of Turkey and who recently published a +600 page book on the Gülen charter schools titled “Empire of Deceit.”

In the VICE interview, Amsterdam says he is continuing the investigation with an upcoming second book, commenting, “the Gülen organization and the movement are a danger to the national security of the United States.”

In the segment, a VICE News investigative team visits the Syracuse Academy of Science in upstate New York, a charter school allegedly linked to the Gülen organization.

“Turkish teachers came in every year, they were not certified, they were not very strong with their English language skills, so a lot of times the kids would struggle,” said Patrick McGowan, a whistleblower and former teacher at the school interviewed by VICE News. “It’s almost like a Turkish mafia runs the school.”

Another former human resources manager at the Syracuse school explains that in order to meet state requirements and get more public funding, the school would falsify academic records: “The first time I actually witnessed this type of cheating it came from the teacher, and that teacher showed me the documents of grades being changed on students’ report cards,” the whistleblower said in the interview.

Parents and students interviewed by VICE News were also outraged by the subpar quality of education at the Gülen schools.

“They brag about 98% of their kids being accepted to college. But when you look at it, how many of those kids actually make it through the first year?” says Gwendolyn Muok, whose daughter attended the Syracuse Academy of Science, in the segment. “I think the goal of the school is to get the taxpayer dollars to help fund their movement. And our kids our paying the price for it.”

Recently, the alleged abusive conduct of the Gülen schools has attracted attention of civil rights groups. In November 2017, the California chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) passed a resolution demanding investigations into this organization. But in many other states, politicians have been hesitant to act because of the lobbying strength and pervasive political contributions of Gülenists, says Amsterdam.

“Gulen and his PR people have been extraordinarily effective at deflecting the conversation,” Amsterdam said to VICE, explaining how the organization has managed to escape accountability. “Even Gülen’s representative interviewed in the segment had no answers, no specific factual disagreements with the public record evidence published in ‘Empire of Deceit,’” Amsterdam says.

“This book is about the unregulated nature of a very dangerous cult in the United States,” says Amsterdam, “and that’s what matters.”

“Empire of Deceit” is available as a free download at www.empireofdeceit.com.

This material is distributed by Amsterdam & Partners LLP / the Republic of Turkey. Additional information is available at the Department of Justice, Washington, DC.

vice news click here https://www.webwire.com/ViewPressRel.asp?aId=219192

EMPIRE OF THE DECEIT http://www.empireofdeceit.com 

Unmasking Gulen: Sibel Edmonds & Newsbud in Austin on Tuesday, December 12

http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/wp-content/uploads/Flyer_Print_HANDOUT.pdf