A compilation of news articles about charter schools which have been charged with, or are highly suspected of, tampering with admissions, grades, attendance and testing; misuse of funds and embezzlement; engaging in nepotism and conflicts of interest; engaging in complicated and shady real estate deals; and/or have been engaging in other questionable, unethical, borderline-legal, or illegal activities. This is also a record of charter school instability and other unsavory tidbits.
Raleigh, N.C. — A former Chatham County charter school teacher charged with sexual exploitation involving computer posted bond Friday morning and will appear in court again May 1, Morrisville police said.
Jason Perkins, 38, stands accused of 10 counts of sexual exploitation of a minor, police said.
Perkins, who taught at the Woods Charter School in northern Chatham County, resigned from his teaching position as a result of the probe.
Digital images of a child under the age of 16 were recovered on Perkins' home computer hard drive, police said.
According to court documents, the photos show a female child engaged in sexual acts alone and with an adult male.
A State Bureau of Investigation source told WRAL that Perkins came under investigation after he solicited an undercover officer online on Feb. 13.
Perkins taught middle and high school students at Woods. Before teaching there, he taught in the school systems of Wake, Cumberland and Carteret counties, the SBI said.
After wrestling down a unionization attempt and struggling with academic performance, a Brooklyn KIPP school is bringing in a new principal and letting go of teachers.
Concerns about high teacher turnover surfaced at the KIPP AMP (Knowledge is Power Program: Always Mentally Prepared) school in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, two years. The concerns were the driving force behind teachers’ decision to join the teachers union against the will of the school’s board. A year later teachers opted out of union membership, kicking off a prolonged fight in which the United Federation of Teachers accused KIPP of intimidating teachers who wanted to unionize.
Now, the school could experience what teachers initially feared: turnover and instability. It’s unclear how many teachers will lose their jobs…
KIPP AMP has also been struggling academically. Of the four KIPP schools that have been open long enough to get progress reports, KIPP AMP’s C-grade put it at the bottom last year. Like most public schools, its test scores were hurt when the state made it more difficult to pass the annual math and English exams last year. The percentage of KIPP AMP students who tested proficient on the English exam fell from 78 to 34 percent and from 87 to 47 percent on the math exam…
The pervy pedagogue who allegedly bedded an underage student and seduced another teen into snapping X-rated pics has another classroom gig - teaching aspiring educators.
Bartley, 46, has been teaching a course on Sundays called Foundations of Parenting, which focuses on the roles of family and teachers in a child's development.
After inquiries from the Daily News, school officials last night announced Bartley was suspended pending an investigation into "possible violations of Touro College's code of conduct."
Earlier in the day, Bartley's students said they were freaked out that he was still affiliated with the school.
"I'm like having a heart attack now going to this class," a student told The News. "There's no way that I'm going to be able to look at him."
Last week, Special Schools Investigator Richard Condon released a report on a probe into Bartley that began in April after a parent complained. Investigators discovered that he had a 14-month affair with a Bronx student at a hot-sheets motel starting when she was 13.
He also coaxed a 13-year-old Brooklyn student into sending him naked profile shots and photos of her feet. At another Brooklyn school, he showered a 15-year-old student with gifts, a trip to the nail salon and foot rubs.
The Bronx and Brooklyn district attorneys are now investigating, and Bartley has been banned from working for the Department of Education…
Bartley also worked at three city middle schools in the past five years. He was fired from his last school, KIPP AMP Academy Charter School in Brooklyn, in June.
An utterly depraved junior high school teacher carried on a yearlong affair with a 13-year-old student and attempted to seduce two other teens before he was finally fired, investigators said yesterday.
Wayne Bartley, 46, a former science teacher at KIPP AMP Academy Middle School, held his illicit trysts with the 13-year-old girl, at the Paradise Motor Inn, a hot sheet motel in the Bronx, from March 2008 to May 2009, according to the Special Schools Investigator Richard Condon…
He convinced another 13-year-old he met when he taught at IS 392 in Brooklyn to send nude photos of herself to his cell phone. He also gave cash to a third teen, one his KIPP AMP students in Brooklyn, and massaged her feet after paying for her pedicure…
Bartley, who earned $60,000 a year, worked at IS 229 from 2005 to 2008 then transferred IS 392 in Brooklyn. He was "discontinued" in July 2009, according to Department of Education spokeswoman Marge Feinberg.
But, he landed a science teacher position at KIPP during the 2009 to 2010 school year and was fired in June after administrators learned of the investigation.
CHICAGO - A former Chicago school principal, whose home computer contained hundreds of illegal images of child pornography when he was arrested, was sentenced yesterday to 20 years in prison following his guilty plea. This sentence resulted from an investigation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Dr. Joseph Nurek, 57, was sentenced Sept. 4 in federal district court by U.S. District Judge Wayne Andersen to 20 years in federal prison, the statutory maximum, on one count of receiving child pornography. Nurek was ordered to pay a $50,000 fine and participate in a sex offender rehabilitation program. Nurek also agreed to pay about $500,000 in restitution to his child-abused victims for counseling and other treatment.
Nurek was employed as a principal at the Chicago International Charter Schools West Belden Campus when ICE agents arrested him in March 2004 after executing a search warrant at his Chicago residence. A forensic exam of his home computer revealed hundreds of images of child pornography involving young boys engaged in sexually explicit activities, and multiple videos containing child pornography.
In June 2004 Nurek was indicted on eight counts of receiving and possessing child pornography. In October of that year Nurek was indicted by a grand jury on additional charges that he transported minors across state lines with the intent to engage in sexual activity. He pleaded guilty in December to one count of receiving child pornography, but yesterday's sentencing took into account all the conduct contained in the charges against him. Nurek had been held in federal custody without bond since October 2004.
"ICE is committed to bringing all of its law enforcement resources to bear on cases like this that involve the greatest violations of public trust," said Elissa A. Brown, special agent-in-charge of the office of ICE investigations in Chicago. "We've made it an agency priority to stop individuals from using the Internet to abuse and exploit innocent children. ICE is committed to protecting those who cannot protect themselves, and the victims of child sexual exploitation are at the top of that list."
Nurek's arrest is part of a global ICE child pornography investigation that focused on an Internet billing company based in Minsk, Belarus, and its affiliated entities in the United States. In January 2004, the Belarus firm was charged with money laundering, as well as providing credit card billing services for 50 child pornography websites worldwide and operating child porn websites on its own. After dismantling the leadership of the enterprise, ICE agents turned its focus to customers who purchased child pornography subscriptions, including Nurek.
Nurek's arrest and prosecution were part of Operation Predator, ICE's comprehensive initiative to safeguard children from foreign national pedophiles, international sex tourists, Internet child pornographers, and human traffickers. Since Operation Predator was launched in July 2003, ICE agents have arrested more than 10,000 individuals nationwide, including more than 540 in Illinois…
