GULEN FRAUD IN OAKLAND: BayTech Charter School Under Investigation | East Bay Express

BayTech Charter School Under Investigation | East Bay Express

BayTech Charter School Under Investigation 
The principal suddenly resigned after the school's board accused him of fraud, but the controversy raises questions about the school's links to the Gülen movement.

Just before the end of the last school year, the principal of Oakland's Bay Area Technology School, Hayri Hatipoglu, suddenly resigned. At least four other senior staff and two of the charter school's five board members also abruptly quit. As a result, the organization was thrown into chaos. And then Hatipoglu disappeared. According to several sources, he left the country with his family for Australia, where he is a citizen.

Afterwards, the Oakland Unified School District, which is responsible for overseeing the BayTech charter school, opened an investigation. BayTech's three remaining board members also hired an independent party to carry out their own internal review.

While OUSD and BayTech have both attempted to keep the mini-crisis under wraps, the Express has learned that BayTech's three remaining board members are accusing Hatipoglu of defrauding the school. They allege that Hatipoglu surreptitiously changed his employment contract to provide himself with three years' worth of severance pay totaling about $450,000, an unusually large sum for a small school with an annual budget of approximately $3 million. His previous contract provided for only six months of severance pay, a standard in the education sector.

"We believe he changed his contract," said BayTech board member Fatih Dagdelen in a recent interview. "According to his contract, he'd get paid a six-months salary if he resigned, but all of a sudden his contract said he'd get paid two-and-a-half years further."

As to why Hatipoglu resigned, Dagdelen declined to say, but he added, "we have a lot of evidence and believe there's a fraud."

Hatipoglu has countered that he did nothing wrong. Instead, he alleges that Dagdelen and two other BayTech board members are part of a "shady network" trying to "take over" the school.

In an unusual and unsolicited email to the Express sent on June 28, Hatipoglu wrote that the school's Turkish board members conspired to punish him for his decision to break ties with a Southern California-based nonprofit. The nonprofit, Accord Institute, happens to be controlled by the followers of a powerful Turkish imam who leads a global Islamic political force called the Gülen movement.

Founded in the 1970s by the religious leader Fethullah Gülen, the Gülen movement is an Islamic-inspired social and political force that Continue reading: BayTech Charter School Under Investigation | East Bay Express

Teachers are getting targeted anti-union emails from conservative groups | PBS NewsHour

Teachers are getting targeted anti-union emails from conservative groups | PBS NewsHour

Teachers are getting targeted anti-union emails from conservative groups

Conservative, free-market groups across the country have launched campaigns aimed at persuading teachers to drop out of their unions, in the aftermath of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that will put a dent in unions’ finances and membership numbers.

For the past year, union officials had been preparing to face both an adverse ruling in Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees Council 31 — which in June determined public-employee unions could no longer collect fees from nonmembers for collective bargaining—and subsequent efforts by anti-union groups to get teachers to end their memberships. But the speed and scope of the anti-union messaging has been striking.

In some cases, school district officials have even stepped in to block the flow of these outside messages on school system email servers.

Right-leaning think tanks and advocacy organizations have placed anti-union ads on Google and social media and sent targeted emails to teachers across the country. Some plan to go door to door to reach educators during the summer.

Ashley Elpern Chapman, a public school teacher and union member in Newton, Massachusetts, received a message from one of these groups, the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, the day after the Janus decision came down on June 27.

“The wording of [the email] sounded very manipulative, and very, ‘We’re here to help you,’” she said. “They’re there to push an agenda — not looking out for teachers.”

National unions and state affiliates have been quick to highlight that many of these organizations receive funding from prominent conservative donors and have ties to the Koch family foundations, which have donated millions of dollars to conservative and libertarian groups. The groups see the Janus decision as an opportunity to gut money from the unions, who support Democratic candidates and issues. The Mackinac Center also receives funding from The Dick and Betsy DeVos Family Foundation, a philanthropic group started nearly three decades ago by the now-U.S. secretary of education and her husband. Unions argue that these email and social-media campaigns are designed to suppress workers’ rights and benefit corporate interest.

But Patrick Wright, the Mackinac Center’s vice president for legal affairs, says that his organization is simply providing teachers with the facts necessary to Continue reading:  Teachers are getting targeted anti-union emails from conservative groups | PBS NewsHour