Gulen's American Empire
Gulen Empire map from Turkish Newspaper. DISCLAIMER: If you find some videos are disabled this is the work of the Gulen censorship who have filed fake copyright infringement reports to UTUBE
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
Magnolia Science Academy - A Gulen Charter School: Gulen Schools, FBI penetrates Bay Area Cultural Co...
Magnolia Science Academy - A Gulen Charter School: Gulen Schools, FBI penetrates Bay Area Cultural Co...: The FBI also met with representatives of a Turkish-oriented non-profit group called Bay Area Cultural Connections and used one meeting par...
Controversial Claims over Charter School Connections Gulen Charter Schools
http://wreg.com/2012/06/12/controversial-claims-over-charter-school-connections/
“To impress the school district” what a liar!!!!
A Shelby county commissioner claims Former Mayor Willie Herenton's charter schools are connected to a controversial Islamic leader. Herenton's schools W.E.B. DuBois Consortium of Charter Schools were approved last Tuesday.
Shelby County Commissioner Terry Roland has asked the state to step in and investigate their connection to Turkish preacher Fethullah Gulen.
Gulen is described by national media as an exiled Turkish preacher trying to build an Islamic movement with him as its leader. He has over a hundred schools in several states, and Shelby County Commissioner Terry Roland believes Gulen is connected to former Mayor Willie Herrenton's W.E.B. DeBois Charter Schools.
"I know that the governor is a big advocate of charter schools. I want to know what he knows about this," said Roland.
The schools were approved last week and Roland is asking Tennessee's department of Education to investigate the connection before Shelby County tax payer dollars come into the mix.
"The general public needs to know where all are tax dollars are going. Why is it important? Because some of these organizations are getting twenty percent of the public money off the top to run these organizations," said Roland.
We could not get in touch with Willie Herenton for comment, but he told the Commercial Appeal there was no connection with his charter schools and Harmony Schools. He said he just included that in the application to impress the school district.
Roland says if that is true and there is no connection the application should be thrown out anyway because it is a falsified document. He's also concerned because the Harmony Schools have defaulted on some bonds in Georgia leaving the tax payers with the bills. He says he doesn't want that to happen here in Memphis.
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
Gulen Fulton Science Academy management problems go back 10 years
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| Principal of Fulton Science Academy Kenan Sener, has denied the findings of the audit. However reviewing the Grace Institute and Fulton Educational Service's 990 IRS tax returns at http://www.guidestar.com/ reveals that Mr. Sener was paid for other services. In fact, there is over $500K paid to Gulen Front group Grace Institute but questions on what "services" were done to benefit the education of students.
SEVERAL PEOPLE HAVE MENTIONED THE UNCANNY RESEMBELANCE TO YODA. HOW CUTE!!
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June 11, 2012
ALPHARETTA, Ga. – The management issues cited at the Fulton Science Academy in a recent audit have apparently been in place since the school opened, and may have laid the groundwork for its eventual demise as a publicly funded charter school.
The inaugural school year was only halfway through in 2003 when Fulton County School System officials were drawn into what was described as "serious problems" on the governing board of the FSA. According to a news article published in March 2003 in Appen Newspapers, "a serious rift has developed on the [FSA] board of directors over who is in control, essentially splitting the seven-member board into two factions with each side accusing the other of illegal activities."
Parent members of the school's governing board sought to remove the principal, Selim Ozdemir, but maintained they were stymied by the founding trustees who essentially took over as the majority on the governing board.
The founding board originated the charter for the school and was responsible only for running the nonprofit aspects of the school.
Parent members of the governing board said the trustees were supposed to cease activities related to the management of the school once the governing board was in place. Instead, the trustees appointed themselves into control of the governing board.
At the time, FSA was struggling with an enrollment of just over 200 students, after starting the year with 300.
Parents sought to dismiss Ozdemir because of what they saw as "the heavy-handedness of the school administrators" that caused the drop in students. They also noted much of the problem was culturally based, noting the principal, all three members of the founding board, as well as a significant number of faculty members, were Turkish.
Ozdemir remained as principal for five more years, at which time he became the director of the Grace Institute, which served as a quasi-vendor to FSA. Ozdemir was paid more than $100,000 a year in that position for two years.
The recent audit by the Fulton School System questioned what, if any, services or products were supplied by Grace, which received more than $500,000 from FSA in just the past two years, and which employed several former and current staff members.
The inaugural school year was only halfway through in 2003 when Fulton County School System officials were drawn into what was described as "serious problems" on the governing board of the FSA. According to a news article published in March 2003 in Appen Newspapers, "a serious rift has developed on the [FSA] board of directors over who is in control, essentially splitting the seven-member board into two factions with each side accusing the other of illegal activities."
Parent members of the school's governing board sought to remove the principal, Selim Ozdemir, but maintained they were stymied by the founding trustees who essentially took over as the majority on the governing board.
The founding board originated the charter for the school and was responsible only for running the nonprofit aspects of the school.
Parent members of the governing board said the trustees were supposed to cease activities related to the management of the school once the governing board was in place. Instead, the trustees appointed themselves into control of the governing board.
At the time, FSA was struggling with an enrollment of just over 200 students, after starting the year with 300.
Parents sought to dismiss Ozdemir because of what they saw as "the heavy-handedness of the school administrators" that caused the drop in students. They also noted much of the problem was culturally based, noting the principal, all three members of the founding board, as well as a significant number of faculty members, were Turkish.
Ozdemir remained as principal for five more years, at which time he became the director of the Grace Institute, which served as a quasi-vendor to FSA. Ozdemir was paid more than $100,000 a year in that position for two years.
The recent audit by the Fulton School System questioned what, if any, services or products were supplied by Grace, which received more than $500,000 from FSA in just the past two years, and which employed several former and current staff members.
Gulen FSA audit points to tighter control for all schools
ALPHARETTA, Ga. – Fulton County School System officials admit being aware of financial issues with the Fulton Science Academy going back several years, but were stymied by the regulations that allow charter schools to operate independently from the locally elected board of education.
"While charter schools are given more autonomy in their operations, the lack of transparency and poor financial management has been a concern for about four years," said Fulton Schools Superintendent Robert Avossa. "[We] tried to give FSA time to remediate its practices so that families could have this charter alternative. However, the [FSA] governance resisted changes."
While financial concerns were not one of the reasons given by the Fulton County School System for not renewing the school's charter last year, it is evident it played a pivotal role in the subsequent denial by the state to become a state-chartered school.
Last week, an audit was released detailing a labyrinth of financial improprieties, including questionable payments to cover immigration fees of teachers and their families, conflicts of interest and self-dealing by members of the FSA management staff.
Avossa explained the audit was necessary to resolve the ownership issue of the assets of the school, much of it purchased with public dollars over the course of the past 10 years. FSA is closing as a publicly funded charter school at the end of this month, and will convert to a private school.
"To conclude the relationship with FSAMS, we conducted a complete review of its operations, including but not limited to, finances, charter compliance and performance objectives," said Avossa.
While FSA officials have challenged the accuracy of the audit, it had not released a response to any of the questions raised in the audit as of early this week.
Avossa said FSA was required to submit to an audit each year to the school system, as are all schools within the system. The requirement with charter schools, however, is they have the freedom to choose who performs the audit, and the focus is more on financial checks and balances as opposed to a deeper forensic audit.
However, it is evident a sharper focus needs to be placed upon all aspects of school operations that use public tax dollars, whether the schools are charter or traditional, said Avossa. As the Fulton School System makes the transition to a charter system, financial management will be one area that schools will not be able to waive regulations.
"The FSA audit reinforces the need for system-wide financial controls [which] already exist in our traditional public schools," said Avossa. "[Local schools] already have oversight as well as built-in checks and balances and this will not change under the charter system. Under the charter system, school governance councils will have some decision-making authority, but will not have the authority to independently contract or take on debt."
This freedom was at the root of the FSA troubles. The FSA Governing Board apparently selected vendors with close ties to the school and staff members, and took on a $19 million debt for a new school campus, on which they recently defaulted.
Avossa said the Fulton School System is contemplating improvements that can be made to the agreements with charter schools to gain more financial accountability. These changes could include:
Regular, in-depth financial audits of all charter schools
Increased oversight of governing board policies
Standards for transparency in operations and governance
In the past 10 years, FSA received more than $30 million from state and local coffers, and apparently raised millions more through donations and fundraising.
In the audit released last week, several key areas of concern were brought forward in the operations and financial management of FSA. These include:
Lack of appropriate safety procedures for students during international field trips
Concerns regarding the $19 million construction bond
Poor security practices related to background criminal checks for staff
Federal immigration issues related to staff
Inappropriate vendor relationships, self-dealing and conflicts of interest
Poor record and bookkeeping
The lack of cooperation by FSAMS with the audit
"While charter schools are given more autonomy in their operations, the lack of transparency and poor financial management has been a concern for about four years," said Fulton Schools Superintendent Robert Avossa. "[We] tried to give FSA time to remediate its practices so that families could have this charter alternative. However, the [FSA] governance resisted changes."
While financial concerns were not one of the reasons given by the Fulton County School System for not renewing the school's charter last year, it is evident it played a pivotal role in the subsequent denial by the state to become a state-chartered school.
Last week, an audit was released detailing a labyrinth of financial improprieties, including questionable payments to cover immigration fees of teachers and their families, conflicts of interest and self-dealing by members of the FSA management staff.
Avossa explained the audit was necessary to resolve the ownership issue of the assets of the school, much of it purchased with public dollars over the course of the past 10 years. FSA is closing as a publicly funded charter school at the end of this month, and will convert to a private school.
"To conclude the relationship with FSAMS, we conducted a complete review of its operations, including but not limited to, finances, charter compliance and performance objectives," said Avossa.
While FSA officials have challenged the accuracy of the audit, it had not released a response to any of the questions raised in the audit as of early this week.
Avossa said FSA was required to submit to an audit each year to the school system, as are all schools within the system. The requirement with charter schools, however, is they have the freedom to choose who performs the audit, and the focus is more on financial checks and balances as opposed to a deeper forensic audit.
However, it is evident a sharper focus needs to be placed upon all aspects of school operations that use public tax dollars, whether the schools are charter or traditional, said Avossa. As the Fulton School System makes the transition to a charter system, financial management will be one area that schools will not be able to waive regulations.
"The FSA audit reinforces the need for system-wide financial controls [which] already exist in our traditional public schools," said Avossa. "[Local schools] already have oversight as well as built-in checks and balances and this will not change under the charter system. Under the charter system, school governance councils will have some decision-making authority, but will not have the authority to independently contract or take on debt."
This freedom was at the root of the FSA troubles. The FSA Governing Board apparently selected vendors with close ties to the school and staff members, and took on a $19 million debt for a new school campus, on which they recently defaulted.
Avossa said the Fulton School System is contemplating improvements that can be made to the agreements with charter schools to gain more financial accountability. These changes could include:
Regular, in-depth financial audits of all charter schools
Increased oversight of governing board policies
Standards for transparency in operations and governance
In the past 10 years, FSA received more than $30 million from state and local coffers, and apparently raised millions more through donations and fundraising.
In the audit released last week, several key areas of concern were brought forward in the operations and financial management of FSA. These include:
Lack of appropriate safety procedures for students during international field trips
Concerns regarding the $19 million construction bond
Poor security practices related to background criminal checks for staff
Federal immigration issues related to staff
Inappropriate vendor relationships, self-dealing and conflicts of interest
Poor record and bookkeeping
The lack of cooperation by FSAMS with the audit
Saturday, June 9, 2012
Thursday, June 7, 2012
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