Tag Archives: Catskill Elementary School

In 2017 Sakshi Jain — Founder Of Ill-Fated GANAS Academy Charter School — Sent Three Videos To CD15 Staffer Fernando Navarrete — Proclaiming That They “Provide A Glimpse Into” What She Had In Mind To Subject Small Children To — Basically Militarized Grammar Drills — Like Some Kind Of Subtextually Coercive North Korean Card-Flipping Performance — Totalitarian Training For Future Automatons — Of A Sort That The Zillionaires Who Fund Jain And Other Charter School Grifters Would Never Subject Their Own Kids To — We Were Luckier Than We Knew That Jain’s Appalling Project Flamed Out

November 7, 2019 Mike Leave a comment

Sakshi Jain, yet another in a long line of nihilistic charter school scammers, once thought she would start a school, GANAS Academy, in the City of Carson, authorized by LAUSD and to be colocated on the campus of public elementary school Catskill Elementary. But the community saw through her lies and fought back against them and Jain ultimately had to abandon her unholy plans and slink back to her lair in disgrace.

It has been clear all along that Jain had no one’s but her own best interests in mind and that placing human children in the custody and care of such a callow grifter was an awful idea, but details of what she was planning for her victims have been few. We did learn recently from a grant application Jain submitted to the California Department of Education that she believed in stringing together empty words about putative excellence, although again, what this would mean for the actual children wasn’t clear:

… rigorous academics, character development, and community engagement, GANAS Academy Charter School educates students in kindergarten through fifth grade for academic success, placing them firmly on the path to college. GANAS Academy believes that all students – regardless of zip code, race, or socioeconomic status – deserve access to a high-quality education that prepares them for success in college and career.

But recently I obtained some really interesting 2017 information from CD15 about what Jain had in mind. Buscaino’s office was involved at that point because Jain originally planned to colocate her infernal school in Wilmington, which is in the City of LA in CD15, so she was cultivating relationships with them. To this end, on October 1, 2017 Jain emailed Buscaino staffer Fernando Navarette and cultivated with all her damn might:
Continue reading In 2017 Sakshi Jain — Founder Of Ill-Fated GANAS Academy Charter School — Sent Three Videos To CD15 Staffer Fernando Navarrete — Proclaiming That They “Provide A Glimpse Into” What She Had In Mind To Subject Small Children To — Basically Militarized Grammar Drills — Like Some Kind Of Subtextually Coercive North Korean Card-Flipping Performance — Totalitarian Training For Future Automatons — Of A Sort That The Zillionaires Who Fund Jain And Other Charter School Grifters Would Never Subject Their Own Kids To — We Were Luckier Than We Knew That Jain’s Appalling Project Flamed Out →

LAUSD

Sakshi Jain — Supreme Commander And Founding Spirit Of GANAS Academy — The Little Charter That Couldn’t — Hired A Guy Named Ed In May 2019 To Recruit Students For Her School — Cause Evidently They Weren’t Busting Down Her Doors Trying To Get In — And Per The Contract — Which Naturally I Have A Copy Of Here — Ed Was To Collect $850 Per Student Signed Up — Yes — You Read That Right — Eight — Hundred — And — Fifty — Dollars — Per Recruited Student — So Much For The Vaunted Efficiency Of Charter Schools

July 15, 2019 Mike 4 Comments

Somehow, even though it makes no freaking sense whatsoever, we are continually asked by innumerable mobs of kool-aid-drunken pro-charter ideologues to believe that somehow their damnable publicly funded private schools are more efficient¹ than publicly run public schools. Thus, the argument goes, we are lucky to be able to funnel public money and other valuable assets to them for their supernaturally efficient use in the pursuit of what they’re pleased to present as public goods.

But just logically, theoretically, even without reference to facts, how could this possibly be true? Like how does it make sense to pay the supreme commander of some random charter school out in Northwest Zillionaireville a significant fraction of a zillion dollars in exchange for her skilled elite commandery when we’re already paying Austin Freaking Beutner an equally significant fraction of a zillion dollars for his equally elite equally skilled commanderistic talents? How many damn commanders do we even need?

In any case, that’s the theoretical no-facts-needed version of the anti-charter-efficiency argument. But, as you no doubt know, the very point of this blog, the one thing that sets it apart from your average raving Internet lunacy,² is facts! Facts as reflected in public records! All this blather, like the blather you’re reading now, exists for no real purpose beyond filling out the blank space around the links to the records.

Like for instance, this link to a contract between Sakshi Jain, supreme commander and founding heroine of the lately placed-on-hiatus GANAS Academy, and some guy named Ed, whose LinkedIn profile identifies him as an educational consultant. The purpose of the contract is to engage Ed’s services to recruit students to attend Jain’s star-crossed but nevertheless self-proclaimedly world-class private school. And what is most amazing to me is that Ed is to be paid per piece. Not a joke. Eight Hundred And Fifty Freaking Dollars per student signed up.
Continue reading Sakshi Jain — Supreme Commander And Founding Spirit Of GANAS Academy — The Little Charter That Couldn’t — Hired A Guy Named Ed In May 2019 To Recruit Students For Her School — Cause Evidently They Weren’t Busting Down Her Doors Trying To Get In — And Per The Contract — Which Naturally I Have A Copy Of Here — Ed Was To Collect $850 Per Student Signed Up — Yes — You Read That Right — Eight — Hundred — And — Fifty — Dollars — Per Recruited Student — So Much For The Vaunted Efficiency Of Charter Schools →

LAUSD, Public Records Act Pragmatics

In January 2019 Sakshi Jain — Founder And Supreme Boss Of Universally-Loathed-By-The-Sane Charter School GANAS Academy — Solicited Her Peeps For What She Was Pleased To Call “Your Meaningful Donation” — So I Hit Her Up For A List Of Donors Along With Amounts Given — And Today I Received A List — With No Last Names — I Hassled The Lawyer — And He Claimed That That Was The List — And That They Claimed No Exemptions — And I Didn’t Believe Him — And Then Jain Emailed Me When She Meant To Email Him — And Admitted That She Had Deleted The Last Names — To Hide Them From Me — So The Lawyer — Lied To By His Client — Handed Over The Complete List — And You Can Read It Here!

July 1, 2019 Mike Leave a comment

Yeah, the headline has the story! Here’s the background! Noted galaxy brain Sakshi Jain is starting a charter school in the City of Carson. It’s called GANAS Academy, and it’s putatively going to co-locate on the campus of the well-beloved neighborhood school Catskill Elementary. But the Catskill folks aren’t taking this quietly. They’re kicking up a damn storm, and rightly so! And I’m investigating right and investigating left and investigating all over the place because who can gaze approvingly upon themselves in the damn mirror in the damn morning if they’re not doing something to thwart these damn privatizers?!

And of course I’m doing my small part by wielding the California Public Records Act like, well, like the California Public Records Act. And in May I got a bunch of emails from the privatizers, and one in particular, this from January 2019, is an important part of the story I’m telling in this post. Therein, you see, amongst other admonitions, did Sakshi Jain admonish her audience thusly: ” 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.”

And a claim like that, that it’s possible for an agency like Jain’s crackpot little charter school that’s subject to the CPRA to keep this kind of crapola secret just because their weirdo sense of what passes for propriety among zillionaires and their willing servants suggests that they ought to do, well, I can’t resist exposing their self-proclaimed but exceedingly putative secrets to the world.

So that very day, the very day I read the email, I popped off this request for records to Jain and her lawyer, the bizarre but weirdly well-dressed little dude known in some circles as H. Wayne Strumpfer, who is of counsel³ to the world’s most privatizing law firm, Young, Minney, and Corr, asking for the damn donation records.
Continue reading In January 2019 Sakshi Jain — Founder And Supreme Boss Of Universally-Loathed-By-The-Sane Charter School GANAS Academy — Solicited Her Peeps For What She Was Pleased To Call “Your Meaningful Donation” — So I Hit Her Up For A List Of Donors Along With Amounts Given — And Today I Received A List — With No Last Names — I Hassled The Lawyer — And He Claimed That That Was The List — And That They Claimed No Exemptions — And I Didn’t Believe Him — And Then Jain Emailed Me When She Meant To Email Him — And Admitted That She Had Deleted The Last Names — To Hide Them From Me — So The Lawyer — Lied To By His Client — Handed Over The Complete List — And You Can Read It Here! →

LAUSD

GANAS Academy Founder Sakshi Jain Emails Now Available — Showing A Pattern Of Increasing Anxiety And Paranoia About Anti-Co-Location Activists — Appeals To LAUSD To Punish Catskill Elementary Employees Who Seemed To Oppose Co-Location — Discussions With The California Charter School Association On Media Strategy — Wild Accusations Of “borderline libelous and slanderous accusations – not just about the Founder, but about the school as well” — Whatever The Hell That Means — Resignation Of A Board Member Who Did Not Want “to be villainized by the community [he] was hoping to help” — Other Essential Information — Including A Potential Brown Act Violation In February 2019 — Read All A-Freaking-Bout It!

May 27, 2019 Mike Leave a comment

Here’s more on the anti-colocation battle being fought by a brave and devoted band of teachers and parents at Catskill Elementary School in the City of Carson against impending plans to install upstart charter school GANAS Academy on their campus. I have been investigating this story using requests made to GANAS via the California Public Records Act.⁴ And just recently these GANASsholes handed over a trove and a half of goodies. You can read about the video over here, and today we’re talking about the emails, which, as always, are where the serious action is. Browse them yourself, of course, or download the whole damn stack of them, right here on Archive.Org.⁵

And today I’m just going to run through a few highlights with transcriptions and a little light commentary. They paint a revealing picture of the effect that the anti-co-location protests have been having on GANAS, with at least one board member having resigned when he became aware of the intensity of the animosity towards his charter school. They also show the growing anxiety, shading into abject paranoia, of galaxy-brained GANAS founder and head of school⁶ Sakshi Jain as it became increasingly clear to her that she was in for a long and bitter struggle, and that there wasn’t really much help forthcoming from either LAUSD or the California Charter School Association.
Continue reading GANAS Academy Founder Sakshi Jain Emails Now Available — Showing A Pattern Of Increasing Anxiety And Paranoia About Anti-Co-Location Activists — Appeals To LAUSD To Punish Catskill Elementary Employees Who Seemed To Oppose Co-Location — Discussions With The California Charter School Association On Media Strategy — Wild Accusations Of “borderline libelous and slanderous accusations – not just about the Founder, but about the school as well” — Whatever The Hell That Means — Resignation Of A Board Member Who Did Not Want “to be villainized by the community [he] was hoping to help” — Other Essential Information — Including A Potential Brown Act Violation In February 2019 — Read All A-Freaking-Bout It! →

LAUSD

March 27, 2019 — Sakshi Jain — Privatizer And Founder Of Charter School Ganas Academy — Famously Seeking To Co-Locate At Catskill Elementary School In Carson — Was Trying To Hold A Meeting At A Denny’s — But Protesters Were There Too — And Not Only Does Sakshi Jain Hate Public Schools — She Also Hates Democracy — So She Called 911 To Complain That They Were Being Really Really Really Mean To Her — And The Dispatcher Was All Like — Ma’am — It Is Not Illegal For People To Be Mean To You — And Sakshi Jain Was All But This Is A Private Event — At A Private Denny’s!

May 11, 2019 Mike Leave a comment

I don’t know if you’ve been following the thrilling tale of privateering charter school Ganas Academy, its astoundingly unsympathetic founder Sakshi Jain, its misbegotten plans to co-locate at the well-loved Catskill Elementary School in Carson, and the refreshingly vigorous battle being waged by a brave and devoted band of parents and teachers pushing back against the privatizers. But if so, well, today I have an interesting bit of information on one episode in the struggle.

It seems that on March 27, 2019, Sakshi Jain and her co-locationist co-conspirators were holding a meeting of some kind at a Denny’s in Carson. And the Catskill supporters showed up to protest. And because she hates the public realm Sakshi Jain didn’t appreciate this. She didn’t like it one bit. And so, in the grand tradition of life-denying totalitarians everywhere, she called 911 on the protesters.

And today I am pleased to present to you a copy of that 911 call! You can listen to it here on YouTube, and download it here on Archive.Org in whatever format suits your needs.⁷ And it’s really heartening, actually. Jain tells the dispatcher that there are protesters at this Denny’s and the dispatcher keeps telling her that protesting isn’t illegal and they won’t be able to do anything.

Jain can hardly believe her ears. She keeps saying that it’s a private event! In a private Denny’s!⁸ That she paid for! None of this is surprising coming from a woman who hates the public realm so much that she wants to make a living by privatizing public schools, but it’s a little shocking to hear it said out loud.

And I also have a copy of what the responding deputies sent to dispatch when they closed out the call, which was that they didn’t do anything because the protesters weren’t breaking the law. If you don’t feel like playing the audio there’s a transcription right after the break!

Dispatcher: Hi, this is Sheriff’s [unintelligible], how can I help you?

Sakshi Jain: Hi, I’m at a Denny’s in Carson and we’re having a private event that is being bombarded by protesters who are harassing us and making videos.

Dispatcher: OK, I’ll send deputies out there but you know protesting is not illegal. But I will…

Sakshi Jain: [interrupting] We understand but we’re at a private event so they’re trying to crash it.

Dispatcher: I’ll send someone out there but like I said I don’t think we’ll be able to make them leave but I’ll send someone out there to talk to you guys, OK?

Sakshi Jain: OK. They’re inside too, so that’s why… They’re inside a private Denny’s and like our guests can’t come in now.

Dispatcher: OK. And do you own Denny’s? Are you working there? Or are you just there having the event?

Sakshi Jain: No, no, no. I’m paying for an event.

Dispatcher: OK. What’s the address there?

Sakshi Jain: Alright, excuse me? The address? Yeah, hold on one second.

Dispatcher: And what’s your name while you’re getting it?

Sakshi Jain: My name is ■■■■■■■■■ ■■■■■■■■■ and one second. It’s in the Carson Plaza Drive.

Dispatcher: And what’s your phone number?

Sakshi Jain: ■■■■■■■■■

Dispatcher: OK, I’ll send someone out there to talk to you guys.

Sakshi Jain: Thank you.