Bored with the Board

Calling All Parents

   Call to arms -- How many parents of Gulen's charter schools actually ever attend a school board meeting? My suspicion is that it is a rare occurrence. Because if they did, they would find an interesting anomaly, and that being that 99 - 100% of the Board Members are Turkish, related to a Turkish person, and/or an American who just happens to be married to one (like former Board President Dr. Jennifer Bayaktar from Horizon Science Academy Denison). Her Turkish husband was a past Board President at Horizon Denison.

   So call me suspicious, but I simply cannot figure out first of all -- why the majority of the Board Members are always Turkish (and mostly male by the way), and secondly, why it is that the parents attending the schools have never noticed that little fact and/or attend the meetings. If my child was attending a school that was run by male Turkish guys, I think that at the very least, I might be a bit curious.

   But you see, that is what they count on. They know that the majority of the parents that send their children to their schools are from poor urban areas and that they often have a difficult time with transportation or are just too plain busy trying to feed their kids that they do not have the luxury of attending the board meetings. They (the board members) bank on the fact that they will not have Americans (or foreigners as they like to refer to us) attending the meetings.

   I was given some great correspondence in which a few board members are talking about how they will have to hold a second (secret) meeting if any foreigners attend a board meeting. Now why do you suppose they feel the need to do that? Must really screw things up if a "foreigner" shows up -- like maybe the people that are supposed to monitor the meetings -- the sponsoring school district representatives.

   Now if people did start investigating how and why the majority -- if not all-- of the board members are Turkish, it might also explain how they bounce around from school to school to take turns on the other Turkish run school boards. I guess it is easier to just train them once and recycle board members than to actually solicit parents or other community members to sit on their school boards.

   So back to the call to arms -- go to the meetings -- and investigate. It's your right to find out what is going on at your children's schools, especially when they are being funded with your tax dollars.

   But unless you know Turkish, and can attend the "second/secret" meetings, you are really never going to find out about the really good stuff that goes on when they close the doors.