On Monday February 27, the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education will be voting on whether or not to allow the Chicopee-based Hampden Charter School of Science to open a sister school in Westfield.

According to an article published in the Boston Herald, parents and concerned citizens are pressing their representatives to reject this expansion application due to the schools known connections to the Fethullah Gulen organization.

The management of Hampden denies any link to Gulen, despite the fact that the board is entirely Turkish with many of them having formerly worked in other known Gulen businesses such as a subsidiary of Apple Educational Services, the landlord and main service provider to the school.

An expert on the Gulen movement told the Boston Herald that schools associated with it have come under fire and state officials should tread carefully.

“They should really look into this,” said David North, a fellow with the conservative think tank Center for Immigration Studies. “Don’t sully your copybook by rushing ahead and accepting this proposal when a whole lot of questions aren’t answered.”

Read the full text of a background briefing on the Gulen schools in Massachusetts here, as well as a property history of Hampden here.