Yilmaz Ak is currently on the top heavy administrative staff of Magnolia Public Schools as the
(please don't laugh) Director of Accountability <----hold the laughter please
Students at the Santa Clara Magnolia campus referred to Yilmaz Ak as "Hobbit" because of his
short stature. Here is a photo when AK was principal of Magnolia Santa Clara, note that second from Right is the current principal Dr. Michele Ryan who was booted off of the Santa Clara Unified School District. Ak is even shorter than the women in this photo
Dr. Michele Ryan their current prinicipal sided with Caprice Young on protecting
Magnolia's erratic behavior. When it was pointed out to her that she was putting herself in a conflict of interest by favoring the Magnolia schools, she recused herself. Now is the current principal.
Yilmaz Ak named in Magnolia Science Academy audit as floating a "loan" to the troubled organization. Shouldn't the "Director of Accountability" mention where he got the $40,000.00
TIMELINE
1. March 2009: Santa Clara County Board of Education approves the charter petition for Magnolia Science Academy-Santa Clara, a countywide charter. The charter was approved for a three-year period (July 1, 2009 to June 30, 2010). The school did not open as planned in fall 2009. In early 2010, the charter was revised.
2. Fall 2010: Magnolia opens MSA-Santa Clara at a site in Sunnyvale (1095 Dunford Way). This is the first of three charter schools for which a 3-year charter was granted to them by the board of the Santa Clara County Office of Education (SCCOE).
3. Fall 2012: MSA-Santa Clara moves into the campus at 2720 Sonoma Place in Santa Clara which belongs to Santa Clara Unified. This site was the longtime home to a historically important Santa Clara school, John Millikin Elementary School. The lease agreement is for three years only: 2012-13, 2013-14, 2014-15 (exp. June).
4. Jan. 2013: SCCOE grants a five-year renewal to Magnolia despite the district finding it has a negative cash flow, poor fiscal accounting and a problem with internal controls. Anna Song is the only trustee who dissented. Also, Magnolia never opened its promised other two charter schools in Santa Clara County.
5. May 2013: SCCOE issues a Notice of Concern to MSA-Santa Clara, citing "failure to meet generally accepted accounting principals." pdf
6. June 2014: With MSA-SC's lease due to expire at the end of 2014-15, Magnolia makes its first request to Santa Clara Unified for a lease extension. It is denied.
7. Oct. 2014: Petition for a totally brand new charter school, the STEM Academy of Silicon Valley (SASV), was submitted to Santa Clara Unified. Seeing the writing on the wall (that MSA-SC will have to close if it cannot get its lease extended or find another site) -- and with the Magnolia organization in turmoil in LAUSD, etc. -- principal Yilmaz Ak and a group of individuals attempt to open a brand new charter school for 2015-16. Supposedly this school would not be operated by Magnolia, but it clearly would be a reconstituted version of MSA-SC that could enroll its soon-to-be-school-siteless student body. Clearly they did this with the hope that the new charter school would qualify for a Santa Clara Unified site under Prop 39. And/or maybe they could have qualified for some start-up grant that would help them lease a space.
8. Jan. 2015: The SCUSD board unanimously votes against the SASV proposal.
9. Feb 2015: SCCOE hearing on SASV (at some point Yilmaz Ak, et al, submitted the same proposal to the Santa Clara County authorizer)..
10. Mar. 4, 2015: Yilmaz Ak submits letter to SCCOE urging them to call a special meeting to decide on SASV asap. He explains that he has applied for Prop 39 facilities and must have the charter approved by March 15th. He closes the letter with, "I would like to avoid having to turn to the courts to settle this issue."
11. March 6, 2015: For the 3rd time, the Magnolia community comes to a Santa Clara Unified meeting to try to persuade the school board to extend their lease for the campus on Sonoma Place (sometimes called the "Central Park" site).
12. March 11, 2015: SASV was unanimously denied its charter application by the board of SCCOE. 13. March 17, 2015: Magnolia CEO Caprice Young comes up to the Bay Area. Holds a town hall meeting w/MSA-SC families and meets with and/or threatens who knows?
UPDATE-
14. August 2015: moves to current location in East San Jose school district at the Hispanic University sharing space with "Voices". Moving to this location and never properly notifying the school district or the school superintendent of this school district Chris Funk.
15. January 2016: formally notifies Mt. Pleasant School district to move into their school district after school district was informally notified by the SCCSD charter division of their request. Dr. Caprice Young never reaches out to either school district, receives a letter from attorney for Mt. Pleasant School District of educational codes and laws that were broken.
16. April 2016: Magnolia files for yet another revision plan and is admonished at SCCUSD BOE meeting for not knowing or understanding that they must collaborate with hosting school districts.
17. May 4, 2016- SCCOE cancels meeting citing "further investigations into possible violation(s) postponed to May 18, 2016 meeting.
18. June 2016 Magnolia Science Academy Santa Clara makes formal announcement to SCCOE that they will be closing their school.
19. July 2016 SCCOE is putting together the final debt that that Magnolia has left behind, estimates are as high as $1, million
WATCH board meeting item #10 MAGNOLIA
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