Bump!
Posted on 11/08/2001 8:14:41 AM PST by Clovis_Skeptic
GateWay district ties in jeopardy Fresno-based charter school,
under investigation, misses documents deadline.
By Anne Dudley Ellis
The Fresno Bee
(Published Saturday, January, 5, 2002 5:21AM)
Fresno Unified School District officials are expected to recommend severing connections with GateWay Academy, a Fresno-based charter school that is being investigated by various law enforcement agencies and the state superintendent of public instruction. GateWay, which has four sites in Fresno and seven others up and down the state, failed to meet a Friday deadline to turn over a detailed accounting of its 2000-01 spending. Fresno Unified has been particularly concerned that the school appears to be $1.3 million in the red.(funding terrorist activities ???)
Fresno Unified governing board President Michael O'Hare said the trustees could vote on revoking GateWay's charter at their Jan. 16 meeting.
"They're basically upside down by 50% of their total budget," said Fresno Unified spokeswoman Jill Marmolejo.
"We've seen good teaching, that students are engaged and that there is parent involvement, but on the operational end of the schools, related to financial reporting, health and safety issues and actual student achievement, we have concerns in all those areas."
GateWay Superintendent Khadijah Ghafur could not be reached to comment. A woman who answered the phone at the school Friday said Ghafur was out of town.(someone check the airports)
Marmolejo said the district rejected GateWay's request for an extension until Jan. 15.
Should the school have its charter revoked by Fresno Unified, it could apply to another school district, an official from the state Department of Education said.
GateWay, the state's fastest growing charter school system, has an enrollment of about 620 students at sites from the Bay Area to Southern California. It began attracting statewide attention because one of its sites is located in Baladullah, a Muslim community in the Tulare County foothills, about 60 miles east of Fresno.
There have been media reports that authorities are investigating connections between Baladullah and a terrorist organization.
Concerns raised
In August, a man who had lived briefly in Baladullah was arrested and charged with fatally shooting a Fresno County sheriff's deputy.
Baladullah, because of its Muslim residents, is suffering an intense backlash from the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Ghafur has said. She also has said that the school did nothing wrong and that questions about its finances are a "misunderstanding."(then why did you miss the deadline to account for your missing $1 million dollars, and straighten out this misunderstanding???)
Marilyn Shepherd, who assumed oversight of Fresno Unified's charter schools department in the fall, has been concerned about GateWay, and some of the district's other charter schools, for a couple months.
The district at that time began updating records on its 10 charter schools, making sure they were operating within state guidelines and had provided Fresno Unified with necessary documentation.
Charter schools, approved by the state Legislature in 1992, are independent campuses established by parents, teachers or others interested in developing alternative forms of education.
They are publicly funded based on enrollment, receiving about the same amount of per-student funding as regular schools. (the diferrence is they fund terrorists as opposed to teaching kids)
They are exempt from much of the state Education Code, but they are still required to teach to state curriculum standards, administer state-mandated testing and steer clear of religious-based teaching.
Unclear roles
Charter schools must have their charters -- a blueprint for their operation -- approved by a local public school district. But the chartering school district's oversight role has been murky, as has the oversight role of the state Department of Education.
Should the Fresno Unified board cut its ties with GateWay, it would be the first charter to be revoked in the district. Statewide, 14 charters have been revoked since 1992, an official at the state Department of Education said.
Shepherd's office also is expected to recommend the revocation process for two other charter schools, Fresno Prep Academy and Renaissance Charter School. They also did not meet a Jan. 4 deadline to provide required financial documents, Marmolejo said.
But the district is most concerned with GateWay, Marmolejo said.
"The other charters that have not turned in their audited reports are not in the same financial situation," Marmolejo said.
"Our big concern is that [GateWay] is $1.3 million in the hole. Given the funding they receive, it's very difficult to make that up. That's a really tough thing to overcome.
"They absolutely have to have a plan to address that, and that's what we haven't seen."
The district's concerns include:
Two loans totaling more than $1.5 million from Delta Public Finance of Sacramento, a private investment firm.
The more than $806,000 the school spent on capital outlay in the last school year. Such expenditures, usually for items such as desks and chairs, were unusually large for a school of GateWay's enrollment, the district said.
Money spent on salaries. The amount for classified administrators -- $253,000 -- "seems like a big number," Marmolejo said.
The reporter can be reached at aellis@fresnobee.com or 441-6328.
It looks like this Baladullah Charter School is up against the ropes, and about to collapse.
And, it is good to hear that the FBI, and other law enforcement agencies are really checking this place out.
About a month ago, a reporter doing research for 60 Minutes contacted me. She thought that I might have some "inside" information. She said they were going to do a story on the Al Fuqra organization, and there various compounds across the USA, and their terrorist connections. I am not aware if they have actually ran that story yet or not, since I never watch that show.
This is the power of the internet and Free Republic. Thanks to people like you, the truth not the PC spin of the local newspaper and lefties gets dragged out in the light of truth! The leftist mediots can't spike the reality of what happened and eventually the story gets legs!
When this is over, I predict that this is just the tip of the iceberg of a very dangerous exampleof Jihad in America!
GateWay charter revoked Fresno Unified trustees rebuff pleas from crowd.
By eolvera, Cyndee Fontana
The Fresno Bee
(Published Thursday, January, 17, 2002 4:55AM)
Despite impassioned pleas from parents, students and staff, Fresno Unified School District trustees late Wednesday unanimously voted to close the GateWay Academy charter school because of financial and other problems.
During a packed session that spanned nearly four hours and featured an arrest for unruly behavior, the district's board rebuffed GateWay's request for a 30-day reprieve.
Instead, several trustees said they didn't think GateWay, the state's fastest-growing charter, could reach financial stability.
While the vote was emphatic, far less clear is what will happen next.
GateWay lawyer Akil K. Secret said after the decision that he believes the district is required to submit the dispute to arbitration.
Failing that, Secret said: "Almost certainly we will seek redress in the courts."
Secret also did not know whether GateWay's 11 school sites would be open today. He said the system might be able to hold classes as long as it doesn't use public money.
With tears in her eyes, Osunji Russell said she did not know whether she would take daughter Ayasha Hunley to school this morning. Ayasha, a 5-year-old kindergarten student at GateWay's Dakota Learning Center in Fresno, earlier told trustees that she loved going to school.
Other parents also were upset. Marie Davis couldn't believe the board voted out the charter school she says helped build both her son's self-esteem and his grades. She fears funneling Marshall, a freshman at the Dakota Learning Center, back into a traditional public setting where he may get lost.
"I don't think mainstream school will help him -- in fact, I'm certain of it," Davis said.
Wednesday's meeting brought together most sides of a controversy that has raged for months across the state. GateWay documents show that it is roughly $1.3 million in debt, and a 3-inch-thick district compliance report alleged that the charter school operated in buildings without fire inspections, hired employees without required background checks, submitted questionable attendance records and failed to complete an itemized financial report.
Last month, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Delaine Eastin threatened to cut off funding if GateWay couldn't answer allegations that some satellite sites taught religion, charged tuition, or were converted from private schools. She asked Fresno Unified, which granted the GateWay charter, to investigate those and other concerns.
Wednesday, district officials told the governing board that they had received only partial cooperation from GateWay. A major red flag was the lack of an independent financial audit given the school's $1.3 million debt.
GateWay officials were backed by supporters who spilled out into the hallways of the meeting chamber. Some came on buses from Adelanto in San Bernardino County, one of GateWay's satellite sites.
One proponent, Norm Pimentel, was arrested by Fresno police after he ran out of time during public comment period and refused to leave the podium.
More than a dozen speakers, including parents and students, praised the GateWay educational process and pleaded for the school to remain open. GateWay representatives also asked for 30 days to fix problems, saying that they had answered most district complaints in documents submitted Wednesday.
They said most problems had been cleared up or addressed. For example, employees who lacked background checks were placed on administrative leave. They volunteered to close the five sites they said had not yet passed fire safety inspections.
Board Member Bill Riddlesprigger offered a motion that would have put off revocation, but no other trustees were interested in that. Riddlesprigger ultimately agreed to revoke the charter. Voting with the prevailing side would allow him to bring back the issue for reconsideration, he said.
Under the board decision, in part GateWay officials must immediately notify parents of the closure, turn over assets, stop any spending and hand over records.
GateWay opened with three sites and about 250 students in September 2000. By November 2001, GateWay had grown to about 1,000 students in 14 sites between Sunnyvale and Pomona.
Most recently, it had more than 500 students at 11 sites. Fresno Unified officials say they had problems tracking sites because they popped up in far-away cities.
The GateWay charter began to unravel last September, shortly after its leaders went to Fresno Unified asking for assistance completing loan documents. GateWay officials said they needed a $630,000 loan from an investment firm that already had lent them $900,000.
District officials refused to sign off on the second loan and asked for information about 2000-01 spending. Documents submitted by GateWay showed a $1.3 million debt, which sparked concern by Fresno Unified officials.
The district requested a more detailed financial audit -- setting deadlines for GateWay that it failed to meet.
Based on the 3-inch compliance packet, Fresno Unified officials recommended revoking the GateWay charter.
Superintendent Khadijah Ghafur said GateWay's need for loans resulted from its fast growth. Officials also deny the district's allegations of potential financial mismanagement or impropriety, saying much of the problem is the state funding model that pays out only after the service has been delivered.
GateWay officials have suggested that the intense scrutiny is born of fears and rumors about Muslims following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. One of GateWay's campuses is within a Muslim community, known as Baladullah, in the Tulare County foothills about 60 miles east of Fresno.
That community was thrust into the spotlight when Fresno County sheriff's deputy Erik Telen was shot and killed last August, allegedly by a man who stayed briefly at Baladullah.
The reporters can be reached at eolvera@fresnobee.com, cfontana@fresnobee.com or 441-6330.
They need more national heat on them to keep this decision not to fund these Islamic clymers!
Bump!
The name Jammat is not a coincidence.
[shrugs] Everything costs money. The "Islamic Revolution" is no different. It's happening because someone is paying for it. And someone is paying for it because it furthers that particular power bloc's agenda...
Knowledgable posts around the forum seem to agree that bin Laden's "organization" was, basically, a kind of mercenary group. They worked for whatever power bloc/money source was most profitable to them. If they flew planes into buildings -- or provided resources of one kind or another to such an operation -- then I imagine the "real" reason they did it will eventually be seen to be the reason mercenaries do anything -- for the money. (I'm not saying the suicide pilots were in it for the money -- I'm saying that the organization which supplied the suicide pilots probably made a profit on the deal...)
(By the way, good pithy response to a two-month old post... [smiles])
Mark W.
The female spokesperson for Gateway whined and moaned about the terrible oppression of good muslims since 9-11. It didn't work this time.
These terorists need to go, and the goobermint isn't doing anything.
Where are the militias when you need them?
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