Concept Schools Quest Academy must cut ties with Concept

 

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 Quest Charter Academy part of FBI raid attempts charter renewal

PEORIA — As Quest Charter Academy begins the re-application process to extend its five-year contract with Peoria School District 150, the charter school board is grappling with declining enrollments in its upper grade levels.

Total enrollment is 499, Principal Ali Kuran reported at Tuesday’s board meeting. The school’s budget and reimbursements from District 150 are based on an enrollment of 525. Seven more students may enroll soon, Kuran said.

“So we’ll be 20 students short, that’s $160,000,” said board Chairman Glen Barton, estimating the amount of state funding that could be lost as a result. District 150 passes on a portion of its state funding to the charter school, based on enrollment.

The enrollment figures sparked a discussion among the charter school board members about the reasons students leave as they reach the high school level and how it can be remedied.

Quest’s enrollment goal is 75 students a class in grades fifth through 11th. The 10th-grade class currently has 60 students and the 11th-grade class has 45. Opened in 2010, plans evolved to add a grade each year until Quest had 650 students, from fifth to 12th grades, spread over two buildings.

Though the school has a waiting list of students who would like to attend, it does not accept students in the 10th and 11th grades, where the shortages are. When board member Tom Fliege suggested revisiting that rule and possibly admitting more students in the upper grades, others reminded him that students can only be admitted through a lottery.

“If we’re going to be creative, we have to be creative in a way that doesn’t mess with the culture of the school,” warned board member Kristie Hubbard, adding that students who may want to transfer to Quest in high school already may have been struggling in other high schools.

The enrollment drop also means the board’s finance committee must revise the five-year projections included in the application renewal to District 150. Academic achievement, the additional cost of maintaining two schools and technological upgrades also will be key features in the final application to extend the school’s charter for another five years.

Board members also discussed the new agreement with Illinois Central Bus Co., which includes using school property for bus parking and providing office space within the school. The board previously approved a contract with Illinois Central for nine buses at $285 a day per bus, a jump from the $250 a day the board had budgeted for transportation — and a much bigger jump than the $150 a day Quest paid Illinois Central last year.

Another school bus has been donated to the school by an anonymous benefactor, Barton announced.

Read more: http://www.pjstar.com/article/20140826/News/140829276#ixzz3D5MRI7Fo

Ex Horizon Teachers, parents and pupils discuss test cheating, sexual scandal and more with Ohio Board of Education

http://www.abc22now.com/shared/news/top-stories/stories/wkef_vid_21200.shtml Horizon Charter Schools Under Investigation DAYTON/COLUMBUS -- A federal investigation is underway concerning multiple instances of misconduct at 19 Horizon Science Academy charter schools in Ohio. Three of the schools being investigated are located in Dayton. A group of teachers from Horizon Science Academy Dayton High School attended the Ohio Board of Education meeting Tuesday, to share testimony about their allegations of school misconduct. "The stuff that went on here was so outrageous and absolutely unfair," said former Horizon teacher Kellie Kochensperger in an interview after the public hearing portion of the board meeting, "Unprofessional and completely beyond anything I thought a public school should have happening." "Some of the teachers here have used racial slurs when describing students," added Richard Storrick, who worked for the Dayton High School until June of 2013. The allegations don't stop at racial slurs, Kochensperger says she testified about sexual misconduct that she believes the administration hid from parents. "Oral sex, that took place outside of the cultural festival, an after school activity," Kochensperger said. She said the incident took place while she was working at the school, with a group of 6th and 8th grade students. Other students are alleged to have watched, and the incident was recorded on school surveillance cameras. Kochensperger says none of this was reported to parents, who were told that students were suspended for being out of school boundaries. "It's a publicly funded school, so everybody's tax dollars are funding everything we just talked about," Storrick vented. Teachers also allege they were instructed to improperly conduct state standardized tests, and not ask questions about it. "It says here in the book that they're supposed to have calculators," Kochensperger said about a conversation she had with a superior administrator during a testing day, "and he told me they don't need them, it's a science test not a math test." "With every bone in my body I thought if I filed a complaint with the Ohio Department of Education, if I filed a civil rights suit, if I did anything that would get back to [the Horizon] director I would be terminated and I would lose my job," said Storrick about the allegations of intimidation presented to the State Education Board. He added that's why the group of teachers who testified waited until they had found other teaching jobs to do so. About the state meeting today, board member Deborah Cain said, "We as a state board and as a department of education have got to get to the bottom of this. Every allegation must be investigated to its fullest." "Knowing that the kids are being cheated in the long run," Kochensperger said with frustration, "I'm very passionate about students in Ohio deserving better." Horizon Science Academy Dayton and it's parent company Concept Charter Schools did not respond to requests for comment on the investigation.

Horizon Science Academy downtown Toledo, OH has closed

Toledo school has announced it will close its doors for good at the end of the current school year.
Horizon Science Academy Toledo Downtown has decided to voluntarily close its 425 Jefferson Avenue facility in June.
The public charter school's board of directors made the decision after considering the best interests of students and parents and the desire to educate students in the best possible facilities.
Administrators feel the current downtown location does not allow them to adequately fulfill their promise to parents and students. TARTA no longer stops directly across the street from the school, posing a problem for students traveling to and from the facility.
The K-8 students will be given the option to transfer to one of Horizon's two other locations: Horizon Science Academy Springfield and Horizon Science Academy Toledo.
"Both locations are housed in exceptionally well-equipped facilities that contain the state-of-the-art science laboratories, regulation-size gymnasiums, outdoor play spaces, and technology-rich computer labs that the administrators feel their students rightfully deserve," according to a statement from the school.
HSA Toledo Downtown opened in 2010. During the 2013-2014 school year, the location served 275 K-8 students.

http://www.northwestohio.com/news/story.aspx?id=1049820#.U4uT-OkU_mR

Gulen Schools Need Investigation

Here is an article that appeared in the Ohio papers regarding the Gulen operated Horizon Science Academys.  Their report card is at the bottom of the article and they should get an F.  below average

http://www.athensohiotoday.com/blogs/guido_stempel_iii/gulen-schools-need-investigated/article_94db8180-a2c7-54b7-9559-0980118434f6.html

Gulen schools need investigated

By Guido H. Stempel III | Posted: Friday, April 25, 2014 5:26 pm

We expect charter schools to be different, but to say the Gulen Charter Schools are different is a considerable understatement.

There are 19 in Ohio, and they are owned by Fethullah Gulen, a moderate Islamic cleric from Turkey.

Gulen has been a political activist, but he is out of favor with the present regime in Turkey. He now resides in a rural community in eastern Pennsylvania. U.S. immigration officials tried to deport him a few years ago, but in 2008 he applied for and received a green card. So we have 19 schools in Ohio run by an immigrant who does not reside in Ohio. The schools are in Cincinnati, Columbus, Cleveland, Dayton, Toledo and Youngstown.

Most of the Gulen schools in Ohio go by the impressive sounding name Horizon Science Academy. Their web sites are impressive.

Ohio was the first state that Gulen started schools in, back in 1999, but he now has 139 schools in 26 states as well as schools in a number of other countries. His schools have been investigated by the FBI and the U.S. Department of Education.

Most administrators and many of the teachers are Turkish, and there is some suspicion that there have been violations of U.S. immigration laws. The Turkish employees are expected to pay 40 percent of their salaries back into the Gulen organization.

Because the Ohio legislature allows charter schools to operate in secret, it is difficult to assess what the Gulen Charter schools are doing.

Is there a religious slant to the curriculum? When they apply to operate in Ohio, they say there isn’t, but what they say and what they do may not be the same, and there is little oversight of these schools by the Ohio Department of Education. Some observers feel the Gulen operation is a religious cult.

How much of Ohio taxpayers money do they get? It’s not public information, so we can only guess. I will open the guessing at $25 million, but it could be twice that.

You cannot find out who their board members are or when they meet. You also cannot find out how they spend the money. Some Gulen schools in other states are suspected of favoring Turkish vendors and not following normal bidding procedures.

There is one piece of public information — how they do on the state proficiency tests. The Department of Education reports an overall figure that includes math scores, science scores and progress toward graduation. The figures are rather conclusive. Seventeen of the 19 Gulen schools get an F. One gets an A and one gets a B.

I find it difficult to understand why the Department of Education and the Legislature are not investigating the Gulen schools. Of course, the Legislature has given charter schools special status. They are not examined as closely as public schools, and the regulations are so broad that it is difficult to prove that a charter school is doing anything wrong.

Yet here we have group of schools owned and operated by someone who is not a citizen. They get millions of tax dollars and perform poorly. There is a religious connection that is unusual, if not unique. It is time to start asking some hard questions.

* * *

Guido H. Stempel III is a distinguished professor emeritus in the E. W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University.
Ohio School report cards- Horizon Science Academys get an F

 

Gulen Charter schools compared-The AFT, Education, Common Core, Privatization and GreenDot/Concept Gule...

Gulen section starts at 17:00

During the June 2013 conference of Netroots in San Jose, the AFT set up a booth on privatization, high stakes testing and reform in the schools. The AFT is supporting the Common Core but says that it is not being rolled out properly. The issue of re-segregationa of the schools is also discussed along with the the privatization of education through testing by Pearson Inc., K-12 corporation and other companies. The union is seeking to make a "cleavage" of the school reform movement. The issue of organizing in the charter schools is also discussed and what challenges the union faces including union busting by
the largest national charter chain run by Concept Schools which is connected with the Fethullah Gulen movement in Turkey. Gulen is connected to the police including repression of journalists and runs some of the largest newspaper in Turkey along with supporting privatization and theocratic policies in Turkey's schools.
The AFT also differentiated the for profit GreenDot chain of schools with the Gulen schools arguing that they were very different particularly because they allowed unionization of the schools and allowed the teachers to have discussion with the management about curriculum. An AFT representative agreed to provide an audio interview on issues in education.
For more video go to:
http://blip.tv/file/3519531
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-18RVb...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoO_Ym...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAeRbh...
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162...
For more information
Http://chartershcoolscandals.blogspot.co­m
Production of Labor Video Project www.laborvideo.org

Gulen Charter Schools Preview "60 Minutes" CBS NEWS Lesly Stahl Sunday, May...

WATCH THIS SUNDAY, MAY 13, 2012

Politicians in Tennessee BRAVO-State Legislature Passes Limits on Foreign Staffers at TN Charter Schools