As Early As July 1, 2019 Sakshi Jain Already Knew That GANAS Academy Would Not Open In 2019 — She Was In Touch With Gloria Romero — Former State Senator And Supreme Commander Of Scholarship Prep Charter Schools — About Handing Off Stranded GANAS Students To Scholarship Prep’s Wilmington Campus — I Guess It’s Good That Jain Was Thinking About The Kids’ Future — But She Put Off Announcing Non-Opening For Almost Two Weeks — Surely The Families Could Have Used The Extra Time To Climb Out Of The Lurch In Which She Left Them — Oh Yeah — The Official Story At That Time Was That GANAS Wasn’t Opening Because They Were “taking an additional year to plan” — Which Is An Extraordinarily Dishonest Way To Describe What Actually Happened

This is just the briefest of notes to bring you up to date, or at least as up to date as the information presently in my possession will allow, on the slow-mo bridge collapse that is the story of GANAS Academy and its galaxy-brained founder Sakshi Jain.1 Jain’s universally reviled2 plan to colocate her creepy little charter school on the campus of the well-beloved neighborhood public school Catskill Elementary in the City of Carson met with pushback from the community on a massive scale, which was ultimately successful in convincing her to give up on colocation and to postpone opening her school for at least one more year.

This kind of thing, for one reason or another, happens all the time with charter schools. They vanish, leaving enrolled kids in a desperate situation. It doesn’t happen, can’t really happen, with actual public schools. This lack of stability is one of the approximately eleventy zillion reasons why charter schools are pernicious. According to the Daily Breeze, Jain announced on July 12, 2019 that GANAS would not be opening this year. This left enrolled students, for whom, by the way, Jain had paid $850 per each to a super-genius recruiter named Ed, a little more than a month to find a school to attend this fall.

But emails I recently obtained from Scholarship Prep Charter Schools show that Jain had already determined as early as July 1, 2019 not to open GANAS for this school year.3 On that day Jain was introduced to former state senator Gloria Romero, supreme commander of Scholarship Prep, by Chris Copolillo, California Charter Schools Association überlobbyist, for the express purpose of hooking up the students stranded by Jain’s instability and unwillingness to honor her word with one of Scholarship Prep’s schools in Wilmington.

On the one hand, I guess it’s commendable that Jain was thinking of the future of the students she’s stranded. On the other hand, it’s pretty awful that by July 1 she had already determined not to open her school, and yet didn’t announce it publicly for another 12 days. Surely the families who were relying on her to educate their children could have used the extra time to place their kids elsewhere.

It’s also interesting, as you’ll see if you read on to the transcriptions, that in her conversations with Romero, Jain nowhere explained exactly why it was that her school wasn’t going to open. The nearest anyone came to an explanation was Copolillo’s extraordinarily disingenuous statement that Jain “may be taking an additional year to plan”. Which I suppose is the truth, but it’s certainly not the whole truth.

Another small but essential revelation here is that CCSA isn’t just a lobbying organization, it also micro-facilitates the daily operation of charter schools. Not surprising, I guess, but I just wasn’t aware that this kind of thing was among the services they provide. Anyway, read on for full transcriptions of the emails and experience for yourself the private talk of privatizers.


July 1, 2019 — Chris Copolillo to Sakshi Jain and Gloria Romero

From: Chris Copolillo <ccopolillo@ccsa.org>
To: Sakshi Jain <sjain@ganasacademy.org>, Gloria Romero <gromero@scholarshipschools.org>
CC: Jason Rudolph <jrudolph@ccsa.org>
Subject: Connecting Leaders at SP/GANAS
Date: Mon, 1 Jul 2019 18:59:24 +0000

Hi Sakshi,

I am connecting you here with Gloria Romero, the Executive Director of Scholarship Prep, which is starting up next year with a focus on the Harbor area. Per our conversation, Scholarship Prep still has room to enroll new students, and could be a great landing place for some of your kids, if they end up looking for a new school.

Gloria, Sakshi Jain is the incredible leader of GANAS Academy, which was authorized in 2018 at LAUSD to operate in the Wilmington/Harbor area. The school may be taking an additional year to plan, but Sakshi already has a small group of students enrolled.

I will let you two take it from here.

Best,

Chris Copolillo

Director, Regional Advocacy, Greater Los Angeles

California Charter Schools Association

(804) 398-8975


July 1, 2019 — Gloria Romero to Sakshi Jain and Chris Copolillo

Subject: Re: Connecting Leaders at SP/GANAS
From: Gloria Romero <gromero@scholarshipschools.org>
Date: Mon, 1 Jul 2019 12:09:59 -0700
Cc: Sakshi Jain <sjain@ganasacademy.org>, Jason Rudolph <jrudolph@ccsa.org>,
Andrew Crowe <acrowe@scholarshipschools.org>
To: Chris Copolillo <ccopolillo@ccsa.org>

Thanks, Chris, for connecting us!!
Sakshi—Chris has provided me background information on your potential need to delay opening this fall

I would love to speak with you to give you information about Scholarship Prep and our new school in the South Bay with a Wilmington home site. We have Enrollment openings available and would love to serve the Families who reached out to you seeking high quality educational opportunities. We are finalizing our school repairs and will be opening on August 19th as planned.

Please call me at (213) 453-6614 or via this email so we can meet to talk soon. I’m in Las Vegas for the national conference but flying home tomorrow. I am copying my CAO, Andrew Crowe, who I believe you know.

Many thanks!

Sen. Gloria Romero ( Ret.)
Executive Director
Scholarship Prep Charter School
gromero@scholarshipschools.org
(213) 453-6614
@gloriajromero


July 1, 2019 — Sakshi Jain to Gloria Romero

From: Sakshi Jain <sjain@ganasacademy.org>
Date: Mon, 1 Jul 2019 14:58:37 -0700
Subject: Re: Connecting Leaders at SP/GANAS
To: Gloria Romero <gromero@scholarshipschools.org>
Cc: Chris Copolillo <ccopolillo@ccsa.org>, Jason Rudolph <jrudolph@ccsa.org>, Andrew Crowe <acrowe@scholarshipschools.org>

Good Afternoon,

Yes happy to connect. Please let me know what times work for you this week. Thank you!

Sakshi Jain | Executive Director & Founder | GANAS Academy

P: 323.364.3629 | sjain@ganasacademy.org | GANASAcademy.org


Image of Senator Gloria Romero (ret.) is ©2019 MichaelKohlhaas.Org and there is always also this.

  1. Who is evidently so mortified at her situation that she has now made that website private, but I’m linking to it anyway because HISTORY!
  2. Insofar as the universe is restricted to sane people, that is.
  3. These few emails are part of an incredibly large, incredibly rich set of material available here on Archive.Org in MBOX format. I haven’t had time to process these into PDFs although I’ll eventually get around to it. Meanwhile, if you need help importing and reading these MBOXes drop me a line at mike@michaelkohlhaas.org.
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2 thoughts on “As Early As July 1, 2019 Sakshi Jain Already Knew That GANAS Academy Would Not Open In 2019 — She Was In Touch With Gloria Romero — Former State Senator And Supreme Commander Of Scholarship Prep Charter Schools — About Handing Off Stranded GANAS Students To Scholarship Prep’s Wilmington Campus — I Guess It’s Good That Jain Was Thinking About The Kids’ Future — But She Put Off Announcing Non-Opening For Almost Two Weeks — Surely The Families Could Have Used The Extra Time To Climb Out Of The Lurch In Which She Left Them — Oh Yeah — The Official Story At That Time Was That GANAS Wasn’t Opening Because They Were “taking an additional year to plan” — Which Is An Extraordinarily Dishonest Way To Describe What Actually Happened”

  1. Any word on why Scholarship Prep abandoned there original site in Lomita?? Seems like they were ready to move into Community Preparation Academy in Wilmington way before CPA was raided by the FBI? What did SP know? Which also equates to what did CCSA know prior to the raid?

    1. I have some info on the location change that I am planning to publish, but it’s not extensive and doesn’t address the questions you raise. But I’m still looking into it.

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