East Valley Guide East Valley has wide array of school options to meet kids' needs

3 comments:

• ohohmrbill posted at 9:52 pm on Sun, Oct 31, 2010.

  Posts: 6

  "charter schools are privately operated and exempt from some regulations that districts are required to follow. For instance, charter school teachers are not required to be certified, although many are. Unlike school districts, charter schools function more like small businesses"

  Which is exactly the problem with some charter schools. Just like many business we see today there is no accountabilty or fault with staff members. Which in some cases can be more dangerous to your child. For example with Sonoran Science Academy as a business they also have seated themselves onto the Arizona State Board of Charter schools. So if there is an issue where do you go? This is a conflict of interest is it not? Also as a business Sonoran Sceince Academy hires a lot of foriegen immagrants on H-1B visas. Which means a lot of American teachers do not get hired. Google "Foriegnors fill ranks charter school chain. "

  In one charter school related to the Sonoran Science Academy In Ohio , Horizon Science Academy a child a brought a gun to school. The gun was tken away and the parent was called. The school never notified law enforcement. With that being said, SSA had teacher sexually harrass a female student. The school never notified the parent of the issue nor the propler authorites to the matter investaged. As a business they fell they have the option to handle things internaly and private. Even if this means you the parent or following the letter of the law when it comes to dangerous acts involving your children.

  Due to the nature of being a business fruad and questionable accounting practices are very common with charter schools. They seem to get away with a lot more due to unregulations and the feeling that they do not have to accountable for anything.

  Charterschoolscandles.com is very reliable source for demographic research on charter schools. Great schools is not. The surveys are skewed due to the fact that SSA has in the past has encouraged parents, teachers and students to go to the websight to increase there rankings. Greatschools.com in my opinion should only be looked at as a marketing tool. Also in the schools last news letter parents as in every communication are encouraged to donate more and more money. This Mr. Karatas the principal has threatened that if the school does not raise 75,000 he will cut funding to programs and eliminate teachers. This is a scare tactic because 75,000 would not even make a dent in the pay roll issue. Again as a business there is NO accountabilty for there own mishandling of public and donated funds and this is nothing more than to shift blame on parents for not giving enough money. Tom horne may have closed 9 public schools in TUSD but this did stop him from taking campain contributions from members of this school as well in order to protect them from the law when it comes to banning ethnic studies and there own pro Turkish agenda. Google Tucson Weekly Hidden Agenda. When a school operates as a business, with a political and religious stance there is just way to much contriversay and dangers involved. Why would anyone work for send there children and donate for this cause?

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• lilmoe posted at 9:02 pm on Tue, Mar 1, 2011.

  Posts: 4

  I have 2 friends that once worked for a Sonoran school and attested the same exact thing: foreigners being hired at the last minute because they "couldn't find teachers here in the U.S."

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• soricobob posted at 6:20 am on Sat, Oct 22, 2011.

  Posts: 665

  What I find equally upsetting is a school which touts itself as "traditional", but is nothing of the kind. These charter schools (and some public) are playing on parent's fears and their sense of not knowing right from wrong. These schools do not develop their own curriculum (which anyone who was in education knows was part of the traditional school), they purchase a curriculum (e.g. Saxon Math, Spalding Reading) and train staff to implement it. That is not a traditional method of teaching, that is a grab at money, period! The same schools then turn to science and social studies as an aside, and simply borrow a text book series, not even a curriculum off the shelf, and do nothing to train because there is nothing to train, just follow the book! Very disconcerting. The teaching staff, as mentioned above, is bad enough, but the administrators are simply overseers in the education factory. I even know a case where an ex-classroom aide became the Director of Human Resources, with no other qualifications but talking her way into it. The "Superintendents" don't need any qualifications, but they take home the profits.

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