Tuesday, February 21, 2012
- Wake County City/ County Bureau of Identification
- Kenan Gundogdu
An N.C. State University professor who wants to start a new charter school in Raleigh was arrested earlier this month for failing to appear in court on earlier charges.
Kenan Gundogdu, 34, has applied to start the Triangle Math and Science Academy, which would be a spinoff of the Triad Math and Science Academy in Greensboro. The physics professor serves on the Greensboro school's board.
According to court records, a Raleigh police officer cited Gundogdu on Dec. 3, 2011, for driving without insurance and for driving with a canceled, revoked or suspended tag. Raleigh police later arrested Gundogdu, who lives in Cary, for failing to appear in court, a misdemeanor. He was released from the Wake County jail on $500 bail, a spokeswoman said.
Gundogdu is scheduled to appear in court March 19, according to court records.
Gundogdu has been the lead applicant in three attempts to start the science-and-math-focused charter school in Raleigh. His two previous applications were not approved during the time when the state had a cap on the number of charter schools.
Once the state lifted the cap on charters last year, Gundogdu applied again under the "fast-track" process. The State Board of Education is scheduled to approve a list of "fast-track" applications on Feb. 29 and March 1. If approved, the schools could open in fall 2012.
Applicants have told state officials that they're eying the former Exploris Middle School in downtown Raleigh as a possible site for the K-6 school with 270 students the first year.
Gundogdu couldn't be immediately reached for comment.
Comments (9)
Showing 1-9 of 9
As hesitant as I am to join such a...passionate commenter, the Indy's recent coverage of charter schools looks a lot like a witch hunt.
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FEW QUESTIONS TO SAMIHA
Examining the context and content of your Jan 25 and this (Feb 21) articles, I have the following questions for you, see if you’ve got guts to reply.
1. What is the source of your motivations that intrinsically forces you to follow every single move of Turkish-Americans in Raleigh area?
2. Which school of journalism did you graduate? Have you ever heard about “objective Journalism”? None has ever told you that there are two sides of every story?
3. When checking court records, did you look for the names of all lead applicants of fast-track charter schools or only scan for Turkish-Americans names?
4. In court records, did you bother to look for other ethnic, religious or cultural groups? Wondering if you ever checked for any Indians?
5. It looks like anything Turkish-Americans do is a big story for you and worthy enough to write an article about it. What is so wrong about a Traffic violation? What is so unusual about? You never got one? Have you been following them and recording their whereabouts as to where they eat, drink, sleep, and when they go to bathroom? If so, what type of personal or –if any professional ethic-do you have?
6. How would you feel is someone follows you for your every move? Exposing the privacy of Turkish-Americans, is that what makes you happy?
7. Why are you following only Turkish-Americans? What is your agenda? Where are you planning to go from here?
8. At the end of the day, do you ever ask yourself “what you have accomplished by going after certain group due to their ethnic background or religious preferences?
9. What happens in Raleigh does not stay in Raleigh. I suggest that we all exercise due diligence so that we don’t sow seeds of hate in the society. America is rose garden helping different roes maintain its color and smell. Why are you so xenophobic? How quickly you forgot about your own origin?
10. Whom are you trying to send a message and why? Why now? Why hurry? Has someone gave you a deadline?
11. Whose spokesperson are you? How much are you getting paid by following this individual and broadcasting his whereabouts? Why is he so special for you or other board members for that matter?
12. Being so much enthusiastic about putting all Turkish-American under your radar screen, is this your divine mission? Which Buddha during what journey to Nirvana told you this?
13. Let’s be honest here, for the sake of whatever God you believe in, let the readers know what is that really bothering you? Or mostly irritates you? Is it the idea of charter school, or ethnic backgrounds of Turkish-Americans or their being Muslim?
14. Any pangs of conscience!! Wonder if you ever have a conscience at first place.
Dear Samiha Khanna,
I don't understand your motivation in this article. You mentioned that "Gundogdu could not be reached for the comment". You published this article at 4:57 pm and your email to me was at 4:57 pm and your voice message to me was at 4:55 pm. You emailed me to learn what happened, but did not even bother to wait a minute for my response.
When I checked your website, your article was already posted. Is this how you practice ethical and objective journalism?
Due to my busy work schedule, I unintentionally missed the court date. Did you check all the traffic and parking tickets of the board members, staff and teachers of all the Charter Schools, or other public schools? Have you never had any traffic ticket or citation? What is the big deal here? Is it me, or charter schools in general you are destined to go after? Check your records, you might have also gotten one for reckless driving or maybe for reckless journalism.
Best,
KG
A SIMPLE QUESTION FOR SAMIHA...
A YES OR NO ONE...
DID YOU CHECK THE COURT RECORDS AND CONTACT THE RALEIGH POLICE FOR ALL THE LEAD APPLICANTS OF THE 9 COMING CHARTER SCHOOL PROPOSALS?
THIS WILL BE INFORMATION I SHOULD CHECK WITH THE RALEIGH POLICE MAY BE...
IF NOT, WHY THIS PARTICULAR ONE ONLY...SMELL THE BIAS?
THE MUSKETEERS AGAINST CHARTER SCHOOLS...
In the past few months, few musketeers wrote minimum of six unfavorable articles on charter schools.
It almost appeared like the paper has been on a mission to misguide the public on charter schools for some reason. However, it simply backfired.
The review committe recommended many charter schools for approval and I will be anxiously watching to see if those musketeers will continiue to bash the charter schools EVEN after their approval.
The reason I am curious about that is to see whether they are trying to wildly misguide the public only or indeed trying to put pressure on the decision making authorities.
Interesting patterns... You gotta love them:)
THE SINCERETY OF A REPORTER ON FREEDOM OF PRESS...
I posted many comments criticizing the bias screaming articles at INDYWEEK.com, curious to see how accepting they were to otherwise thoughts. I was not surprised to see more than half of my comments removed from the comments trail. I was not surprised because the level of bias that I perceived from the articles were talking loud and clear on the level of open mindedness. It did not take them too long to close the site for comment and remove my comments. I was simply sharing my disagreements based on the patterns they presented to the readers.
I believe the Constitution applies to all equally and media should not be the one blocking the freedom of press...
Let me contact the court records and check for the name Samiha Khanna. Then I will share my findings through my comments for all. Bottom line, justice for all or what goes around comes around...
I am curious to see how many of my comments will be removed this time.
THE SAMIHA PATTERN...
THE PASSION TO ATTACK A CHARTER SCHOOL...
Since January 25, 2012 there has been an interesting thread of articles by Samiha over a charter school... Please see the pattern below. And these are only the headlines. You want to see a thicker pattern then go check the articles...
"Questions loom about group proposing Raleigh charter school Posted by Samiha Khanna on Wed, January 25, 2012...
Can school districts truly affect which charter schools are approved? Posted by Samiha Khanna on Tue, Jan 31, 2012...
Raleigh charter school applicant arrested for missing traffic court date Posted by Samiha Khanna on Tue, Feb 21, 2012"
What's wrong Samiha?
A Terrible Article!
Would y'all mind rewriting the entire piece and convert that into an article...
The reporter missed his parking tickets, the number of students failed in his class and the shirt size he is wearing...
Really? Samiha, are you getting paid for such articles or are those your some pieces of your pro bono services?
Comments are closed.
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