The Alabama Education Association has filed a lawsuit against a proposed charter school associated with the Gulen Movement.
The school, Woodland Prep, applied to open in rural Washington County. The state hired the National Alliance for “Public” Charter Schools to review charter applicants, and it rejected the proposal. The state charter commission approved it anyway.
Local people were outraged about the opening of a charter, which was sure to draw away money and students from the local public school. The founder, Sonar Tarim, planned to pay himself a large salary,
Despite the uproar, the charter was expected to open but it delayed its opening for a year after only 50 students showed up, while the school projected an enrollment of 260 students.
School employees in south Alabama today filed suit against a planned charter school, alleging the charter’s approval and contract was obtained through fraud and deception. The lawsuit also alleges the charter is illegally recruiting students from nearby Mississippi.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Diane It’s like a national cancer. CBK
May I amend that?
Diane is like a CURE for a national cancer that is known as the DPE, the Destruction of Public Education.
I’d like the acronym to be DOPE instead of DPE. Can anyone think of a name for this public school cancer that fits the acronym DOPE?
About TIME. YAY. Gulen is BAD. I wonder what’s going on with Gulen shrouded in secrecy.
Clearly, the Alabama Teachers Association has been following Gulen and all the scandals surrounding them. People in Alabama may be afraid to allow a Muslim backed institution set up in the state. Alabama has already had problems with home grown terrorists. Several people from Alabama left the state to serve with ISIS so the people of Alabama may be suspicious of a school owned by a Muslim cleric. The FBI uncovered a terrorist cell and training camp in the state.https://www.al.com/news/2019/05/reports-terrorist-training-camp-found-in-alabama.html
Nice try but the people of Washington County opposed the Woodland Preparatory charter school long before they learned of Soner Tarims association via his scam Unity School Services (That exist virtually with no office or staff in Texas) these tactics will not work. Soner Tarim is fanning the flames with desperate arguments and it will backfire on him. How many people will enroll their children at a school shrouded in scandals, deception and misrepresentation of Washington County’s already high performing schools? The fact that Soner is a well known high ranking member of the Gulen networks is insignificant and irrelevant.
If they insist on building it, parents should refuse to enroll their children. That would send a message to politicians that so-called choice is not what parents want for their children.
Tarim projected an enrollment of 260, but only 50 signed up. How stupid are these people?
Evidently that “terrorist training camp” was nothing more than a house in the woods. The training camp was in New Mexico and the property was at one point owned by someone associated with that camp but he since divorced and it appears his former wife owns the property. Something fishy about that news story.
I’d be more worried about white supremacist terrorists coming out of Alabama than any Muslim ones.
Got that right, Duane!
Alabama has produced some of our nation’s greatest people: Tim Cook the current CEO of Apple, Jesse Owens, writer Harper Lee, writer scholar advocate for disabled Helen Keller and human rights icon Rosa Parks. They are very educated and tolerent kind people.
As can be said about any state, no doubt.
The recent Trump rally had people in attendance wearing
QAnon t-shirts. That’s a group the FBI describes as potential domestic terrorists.
“The FBI calls QAnon a domestic terror threat. Trump has amplified QAnon supporters on Twitter more than 20 times” …
“Supporters of the QAnon conspiracy theory have already been linked to multiple threats, attempted acts of violence, and even murders.” …
“On Twitter, Trump has repeatedly retweeted, quote tweeted, tagged, and shared content from QAnon supporters. Since 2017, Trump has repeatedly amplified Twitter accounts supporting the conspiracy theory.”
https://www.mediamatters.org/twitter/fbi-calls-qanon-domestic-terror-threat-trump-has-amplified-qanon-supporters-twitter-more-20
Donald Trump is clearly a domestic terrorist and a domestic enemy of the U.S. Constitution.
Soner Tarim is a Fellow of the Gates-funded Pahara Institute. The founder of Pahara also founded New Schools Venture Fund. In a Philanthropy Roundtable interview, NSVF’s founder identified the goal of charter schools as “…brands on a large scale”.
Soner Tarim is also listed on the red bulletin of Turkey as a terrorist as well as 8 others. 3 of which have already been arrested. 1 is Kemal Oksuz who is giving testimony to the FBI regarding the Gulen Networks which he helped to build.
Bottom line in Alabama’s Washington County is the Woodland Preparatory is not wanted or needed. Majority of the areas 17,000 people strongly oppose this school.
The FBI raided Ohio schools allegedly linked to Gulen. We are still waiting …and waiting…
The state’s two charter-loving U.S. senators evidently aren’t interested
in who gets Ohio’s tax dollars..
Thanks to the journalist, Trisha Powell Crain, who wrote the linked story. It’s critical for reporters to follow up as she did. The last time I looked, almost 140 comments were added to the article at Al.com
Keep Soner Tarim out of Nevada too.
Apparently, Soner Tarim tried in November and has thankfully been declined twice.
We already have Gulen Corals receiving ZOOM money for English Language Learning – but have zero or few identifying.
Such a scam these Gulens.