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Monday, June 21, 2010

Magnolia to Open First Elementary School in San Fernando Valley -- LOS ANGELES, June 21 /PRNewswire/ --

Magnolia to Open First Elementary School in San Fernando Valley -- LOS ANGELES, June 21 /PRNewswire/ --

Magnolia to Open First Elementary School in San Fernando Valley

LOS ANGELES, June 21 /PRNewswire/ -- The Magnolia Educational and Research Foundation was given the go-ahead this week to operate a new elementary school serving the San Fernando Valley in Southern California. The unanimous decision to approve the Magnolia Science Academy - 7 (MSA-7) was announced by the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) following a board meeting on June 15. This is a significant step for the California-based charter school organization, which runs nine middle and high schools throughout the state.

"This is a great milestone for us," said Suleyman Bahceci, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer of the Magnolia Foundation. "Many of our families in the Valley have been asking for a school for their younger children for a long time. These are families who have limited high quality school choices."

MSA-7 will provide the same high quality curriculum offered in other Magnolia Schools, with an emphasis on math, science and technology. The school will open this fall, along with Magnolia Science Academy – Bell (MSA-8), a new middle school in the city of Bell approved through an LAUSD Public School Choice Resolution.

The Magnolia Educational and Research Foundation is a non-profit educational organization that has been operating charter schools throughout California since 2002. All its schools have a curriculum focusing on math, science and technology, and provide a high quality education to low-income students from ethnically diverse backgrounds. In 2009, the Magnolia Foundation received a statewide benefit charter from the California State Board of Education (SBE) to start ten charter schools throughout


Magnolia Schools charter management organization

This post has four sections:
  • Background information about the approval of a petition for a charter school in Santa Clara County, California. The school, Magnolia Science Academy – Santa Clara, is slated to open in Sunnyvale for the 2010-2011 school year and is currently enrolling students.
  • Revealing excerpts from an email exchange sent to me by a reader who, as a prospective parent, was in communication with a representative of the new MSA-Santa Clara school.
  • Evidence which clearly contradicts the representative’s statements.
  • Why so much about Turkey and Turkish?