Gulen "inspired" school Quest Academy loses connection to Concept Schools

 

By Pam Adams of the Journal Star
Posted Jan. 22, 2015 @ 10:15 pm

PEORIA — The board of Quest Charter Academy will cut ties with Concept Schools, the not-for-profit charter-school management company that has run Peoria’s public charter school since it opened in 2010.

Board members disclosed the decision during a regular board meeting Thursday in which they also announced they’ve reached a tentative agreement with Peoria School District 150 to extend the school’s charter for another five years.

Tom Fliege, vice president of the charter school board, said the two actions were not related.

Concept’s contract with Quest’s governing board, the Peoria Charter School Initiative, expires July 30. The decision not to renew the contract was not motivated by finances or the FBI investigation of the Des Plaines-based company’s handling of federal money for school technology improvements, according to Fliege.

Instead, the charter school board has always planned to eventually take over school operations, he said.

“There’s no acrimony, this was mutually agreed upon. We’ll continue to work together as the contract comes to a close.”

Concept staff, which includes Quest Principal Ali Kuran, will help with the transition. The board has tentatively selected an interim executive director, who also will help with the transition, until an executive director is hired.

Details of the tentative agreement to extend the charter school contract will be released at District 150’s board meeting Jan. 26. District 150 board members are scheduled to vote on the contract Feb. 9. Quest board members will take a vote at a special meeting that has yet to be announced. Both boards must approve the final agreement.

“As is true with any agreement, they’re not totally happy, we’re not totally happy,” Fliege said.

The charter school board wanted more money from District 150, while the district maintained it was not fair for Quest to expect more money because the school district’s revenues are declining.

The charter school board had refused District 150’s last counterproposal. Apparent delays in negotiations prompted Quest board members to discuss the administrative process for closing the school.

But negotiations started moving, according to Fliege, when he and Quest board member Will Ball began meeting with Debbie Wolfmeyer and Linda Butler, the District 150 board’s president and vice president, respectively.

Initially, board members were not fully aware that the charter school board had to have negotiations completed within a specific time frame, according to Fliege. He complimented Wolfmeyer and Butler for “having the courage” to resolve the issue.

Also, for the second time, the charter school board tabled a proposal to partner with Peoria Heights High School to offer football for Quest High School students.

Read more: http://www.pjstar.com/article/20150122/News/150129639#ixzz3PtHLeY4M


Gulen operated charter school in Ohio - denies education to special needs student

Gulen Charter Schools Federal investigation expands to 19 schools and 3 states

Turkish news is having a field day with the FBI Raids, here is a photo of Hocaefendi Fetos
imposed infront of photo of  ill-fated Indiana Math and Science Academy

 

The FBI and two other federal agencies conducted raids in Illinois and two other states at charter schools run by Des Plaines-based Concept Schools, FBI officials said Tuesday.

READ MORE about links to Turkish Gulen Movement:

http://politics.suntimes.com/article/chicago/fbi-raids-concept-schools-illinois-2-other-states/tue-06102014-557pm

and here is the article on FBI raid at Quest Charter Academy in Peoria, IL

 PEORIA — Quest Charter Academy was the subject of a multi-state raid last week in an investigation of charter schools run by Des Plaines-based Concept Schools, according to the FBI.

Read more: http://www.pjstar.com/article/20140610/News/140619838#ixzz34RvaComB

 

Gulen Charter Schools in Illinois effected by senate vote to abolish charter school commission

State Senator Kimberly Lightford



http://politics.suntimes.com/article/springfield/senate-votes-abolish-state-charter-school-commission/fri-05232014-946pm

PRINGFIELD — Reigniting a debate over the reach of charter schools, the Senate moved Friday to abolish a controversial state panel empowered to resurrect charter-school applications that had been rejected earlier by local school systems.

The measure sponsored by Sen. Kimberly Lightford, D-Maywood, passed the Senate 34-22 and now goes back to the House for possible action next week.

Her plan would abolish the State Charter School Commission, which Lightford said had become politicized in its primary function of deciding whether to overturn decisions by school boards that had rejected charter-school applications.

Under the legislation, that panel’s authority would shift to a newly created board to be impaneled by state schools Supt. Christopher Koch, with final decisions on rejected charter-school applications resting with the State Board of Education.

Lightford accused the commission of having worked with rejected applicants to strengthen their applications and thus help them open, which she maintained was not the purpose of the panel.

“We don’t need a charter school commission that’s trying to encourage more charter school applicants who have bad applications,” Lightford told her colleagues.

“You don’t want a bad school coming to your district. You don’t. If they don’t qualify, then you don’t want them in your school district. It’s unfair the city of Chicago is getting flooded with all these charter schools that aren’t performing,” Lightford said.

Lawmakers and Gov. Pat Quinn created the state charter commission in 2011. It was given the power to override local schools officials who reject applications for new charter schools and force taxpayers to fund charters that it allows to open. 

The commission exercised that power for the first time last year, clearing Des Plaines-based Concept Schools to open two new charter campuses that Chicago Public Schools officials had rejected.

The Sun-Times reported in December that Turkish-American nonprofit groups with ties to Concept Schools have hosted House Speaker Michael Madigan (D-Chicago) and many other Illinois lawmakers on trips to Turkey in recent years. 

And records show the state charter commission’s Springfield lobbyist is Liz Brown-Reeves  —  a former Madigan aide who accompanied lawmakers on their trip to Turkey in 2012.

A Madigan spokesman said in December that the speaker did not see any need to scrap the commission.  But Madigan abstained when the House voted 78-33 on an earlier version of the legislation in March. 

The proposal would put the commission out of business on July 1.

Since it came into being, the commission has received most of its funding from private organizations that frequently and heavily contribute to the charter-school cause. That included $200,000 from the Walton Family Foundation, linked to the founders of Wal-Mart. 

But many labor leaders and local school district officials have not been fans of the commission.

At the January meeting of the Chicago Board of Education, Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis said of the commission: “I will sit on that table with you, begging and screaming to get rid of that law. I bet you if we worked on that together, Springfield would respond.”

School Board President David Vitale replied, “Let’s join hands.”

A school district in Gurnee sued last week to reverse the commission’s recent decision to re-authorize the Prairie Crossing Charter School. Schools officials there alleged that the commission-approved charter campus siphons funding intended for the district’s “at risk” students to serve middle-class white or Asian children.