Good Afternoon Team,

I want to start off by saying thank you for your professionalism and cooperation at the board meeting on Saturday. It was as unexpected for me as it as for you but I believe we handled it gracefully and professionally. I also think its a fair assessment that our board meetings may be like this during the next few months.

I have been in contact with LAUSD about Catskills and what they have told me is that the principal went rogue and did this all on her own. LAUSD was there to do due diligence and survey school sites that they believe may be best for us but there was in no way or shape any commitment made. The principal organized this meeting without the authorization of LAUSD and has been spreading lies. The local superintendent will now meet with the school community on January 9th to address this misinformation.

I am linking the video of the meeting below that the school had and as you will hear there is lots of misinformation on there as well. Again thank you for your dedication to GANAS and please contact me if you have any questions.

https://www.facebook.com/euntalan/videos/10161212454385504/

Good Afternoon Mr. Romero,

Happy Holidays! My name is Sakshi Jain and I am the Founder and Executive Director of GANAS Academy, a TK-5 charter school opening in Los Angeles in the Fall of 2019. I was hoping to set up a phone call or meeting with you to introduce myself and our school. In addition, I had some questions and concerns I was hoping you could help me with. Please let me know when you are available. Thank you in advance.

Warmly,
Saksh Jain

From: “Romero, Michael” <michael.romero@lausd.net>
To: Sakshi Jain <sjain@ganasacademy.org>
CC: “Romo, Susana” <susana.romo@lausd.net>
Subject: RE: Sakshi Jain from GANAS Academy, hoping to get in touch
Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2018 21:32:55

Hi Jain,

I am hoping that you are available to speak with me at 3:30 p.m. today. Please call me at 310-354-3410

Thank you Sakshi for the update. I’m glad that LAUSD is looking into and addressing any misconceptions.

Good Afternoon,

Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a relaxing and restful holiday break. I wanted to send two updates/reminders for our board meeting this month.

1) If you have not already done so please make your meaningful contribution to the school. The amount of this donation is an amount that is meaningful to you and is not shared with any other board members.

2) We will be taking headshots that day for our website. Please bring a black blazer with you to the meeting so that you can have your picture taken.

Good Morning Team,

Hope everyone is having an excellent week. I wanted to reach out and update you with the latest developments on our facility search. LAUSD has given us a Prop 39 space and unfortunately, it is Catskills Elementary School. This means that UTLA and Catskills had information prior to us on this location and that LAUSD has not been honest in my conversations with them. I have spoken to our attornies and CCSA and together we will be countering this offer based on the fact that it will impossible for us and Catskills to coexist their due to the existing animosity. I will, of course, keep you updated as this develops. Additionally, we are keeping our eyes open for private facilities and I am in conversations with someone who is looking for sites between Wilmington and Carson. However, in order to start engaging families, we will be focusing efforts in both Wilmington and Carson so that we can hit our target numbers.

We will also be canceling our February board meeting and adjusting the date of our March meeting so that we can better be prepared to meet the opposition. I will keep you updated on the date for that.

Thank you for all your support and staying strong in the face of these hurdles. I am thankful for your commitment and trust. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions.

Warmly,
Sakshi

Good Morning,

I would like to schedule a 15-minute conference call to discuss some updates and get your perspective on our current Prop 39 offer. Can you please send over 2-3 times that you are available this week or early next week and I will schedule? Thank you!

Warmly,
Sakshi

Good Afternoon Team,

Hope everyone is well. I wanted to share some updates and ask for help.

As you know LAUSD offered us a colocation with Catskills Elementary and after much consideration and discussion, I accepted their offer. The reason being that regardless of the school we would be in there would be opposition and the more time we go back and forth with LAUSD the more time we are losing in recruiting students. Furthermore, after speaking with our legal counsel, I was advised that LAUSD is unlikely to budge on the location. My focus now is working with our recruitment team to ensure that we connect with families from Wilmington and Carson and share with them information about our school.

Additionally, due to the opposition being so vocal we will be limiting the number of board meetings we will be having. At this point, it does not make sense for us to have monthly board meetings as they are not productive. Our next board meeting will be virtual and in the next two weeks, I will send more information regarding that.

Lastly, I would like to ask for your help with teacher recruitment. I have been posting on all teacher job boards but am having a hard time finding candidates who are aligned with the mission of GANAS Academy. I am asking that you share the attached job description with your personal and professional networks and urge them to apply. They can apply through our website ( https://www.ganasacademy.org/careers) or you can have them personally email me. Thank you so much.

Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions.

Warmly,
Sakshi

Dear Dr. Vladovic,

My name is Sakshi Jain and I am the Founder and Executive Director of GANAS Academy, a TK-5 charter school slated to open in August 2019 in Board District 7. I am contacting you today because I am requesting your support in ensuring that we have a harmonious relationship with the co-located site offered to us by LAUSD, Catskill Avenue Elementary

My concerns about this colocation stem from the events that have transpired in the last few months. The first mention of this site was brought to us in December 2018 when staff members of Catskill came to our board meeting to protest our colocation. My board and I did not know what we spoke of as preliminary offers are not sent till February 1st. During the few months, the following has occurred at our board meetings:

• The staff of Catskill informed us that LAUSD had come into their school with our team and called for segregation of their students and ours. This was in no way true as neither I nor my board members had ever heard of or stepped into Catskill and nor would ever use such language.

• After our board meeting, I contacted Local District Superintendent Michael Romero who assured me that he wanted all his colocations to be harmonious and no decisions had been made about our site and that he was going to meet with the Catskill community. I also expressed my concerns to Sean Jernigan who told me about a Facebook video that showed the principal of Catskill, Suzanne Zopatti, conducting a meeting in December during school hours with staff and parents sharing information about this proposed colocation.

• In the days following UTLA also had a protest at Catskill about our colocation. ( Picture Attached – you can see that the picture was taken in December, before colocations offeres were revelaed).

• During our January board meeting, even more members of Catskills and UTLA were present. They accused us of lying to them about not knowing about this colocation and steamrolled our entire meeting. We could not conduct any business as there were constantly yelling and accusations being hurled at us. Furthermore, there were statements made about our appearance and threats made to go to our board member’s house and harass him. We will now have to hire security at our board meetings because we feel we have been placed in a very unsafe situation.

• Information is being posted on social media with lies about our school and our name is being defamed. ( See Attached)

• We are getting calls from people screaming and yelling at us.

I ask for a meeting with you to discuss options on how we can develop a harmonious colocation with the offered Prop 30 space. The intent of Prop 39 is to provide charter schools with public space equal to that of a traditional district school because we too are a public school but in this scenario, the two parties involved are not being treated equally and I urge you take action.

Thank you and I look forward to hearing from you.

Warmly,

Sakshi Jain

Hey Sakshi,

I hope all is well and you are managing through all the challenges of the past few weeks.

I don’t wish to pile on, but I have been giving it a lot of thought and do not think I can continue serving as a member of the GANAS Board. The primary reason is that my schedule for this year is going to intensify and I do not believe I can adequately serve the needs of GANAS given my own time constraints, particularly in light of how much resistance there seems to be.

Secondarily, while I realized it would be a challenge to bring a new school to life, I was not prepared for the level of opposition and angst among the members of the community. I believe in the mission, the board and certainly you. At the same time, I do not want myself (or the company I work for) to be villainized by the community I was hoping to help.

I am happy to speak by phone and further discuss at your convenience—please know I believe in you and in GANAS, and will continue to be supportive however I can as a non-member.

Hey All,

Sakshi

On Mon, Mar 25, 2019 at 4:44 PM Chris Copolillo <ccopolillo@ccsa.org> wrote:

Hi Sakshi,

I don’t think you should respond to the outlet this time. This paper is super small and seems fairly tilted against charters already; investing more time is probably not worth the cost. However, the picture (which was also on UTLA’s Twitter) may warrant a conversation with legal counsel. As you continue to encounter these comms challenges and think about how to message against these kinds of attacks, it also may be worth it to talk to someone about strategic communications (Like a Larson PR, for instance).

Thanks for running this by us!

Thank you for your call yesterday to check in. As I share on the phone call, we have been harassed by UTLA nonstop. They have been posting lies on social media about myself, my board, and our school. In addition, they have been harassing us while we are conducting our business all within our legal right.

Yesterday the disturbance created by UTLA members, community organizers + parents (self-identified) occurred during a planned private event being held this morning at the Denny’s in Carson Plaza. Yesterday’s event was small and private – the intended audience is a small group of nine (9) childcare providers, to share more info about our programs – but it was disrupted by the aforementioned group. The assembled group of about 2 dozen or so individuals created a disturbance inside of a private business, were loud, shouting, disturbing other restaurant patrons and attempted multiple times to push through a closed, locked door (this door was already locked, as we were in a private room and it’s part of the restaurant’s policy to partition off the area we rented); in the process of them attempting to push through, they physically pushed aside an employee of Denny’s. Though there was no physical injury to the employee, other than the aggressive behavior they displayed, he opted not to press charges and suggested we contact the owner of the establishment to see if we could obtain footage from their security cameras (we intend to do upon his return next week). We stayed on-site for some additional time, as we did have two guests who managed to make it in, however, we were waited out by some protestors and as we were departing the premises, were approached within inches of our faces, while we had our hands full of items we were taking back to our car, and we had to repeatedly ask them to move aside as they were not only stepping within our personal space, they were blocking our path out of the restaurant. They finally stepped aside, but it took repeated requests and our claim of harassment for them to do so, all while shouting in our faces – due to our hands being full, we were unable to document this moment.

I’m also attaching an example of the type of flyers that are being circulated to the community at large, filled quite frankly with incorrect, and borderline libelous and slanderous accusations – not just about the Founder, but about the school as well. The attached video is a staff member at Catskills who was shouting and harassing our staff during morning arrival. This is the type of information we’re seeking to combat and dispel. I ask for your support to stop this harassment as we too are a school of LAUSD and our families and students deserve the same support given to traditional public schools.