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Monday, July 15, 2019

Former TFAer/TFA Exec (shh…) Allison Serafin: From Texas, to Nevada, and Back to Texas | deutsch29

Former TFAer/TFA Exec (shh…) Allison Serafin: From Texas, to Nevada, and Back to Texas | deutsch29

Former TFAer/TFA Exec (shh…) Allison Serafin: From Texas, to Nevada, and Back to Texas


In April 2016, the Las Vegas Review-Journal published an article about former VP of the Nevada State board of Education, Allison Serafin, who resigned from the board in December 2015 because of a conflict of interest involving her decision to apply for state money to partially fund a charter-promoting nonprofit that Serafin started in 2014, Operation 180. In April 2016, Serafin’s nonprofit, Opportunity 180, won a state contract. From thr LV Review-Journal:
The former vice president of the State Board of Education, who resigned last year citing a potential conflict of interest, won a $10 million contract Tuesday to recruit high-quality charter school operators to Nevada.
When she stepped down from the state board in December, Allison Serafin noted her intent to submit a bid for the state’s new charter harbormaster fund, which matches grants from private philanthropic groups to attract the “best-in-class” national charter management organizations.
The contract authorizes Opportunity 180, an educational nonprofit group that Serafin founded in 2014, to drive two key components of Gov. Brian Sandoval’s education reform agenda: expanding access for low-income families to high-performing charter schools and creating a state-run Achievement School District to take over and turn around chronically underperforming campuses. …
As of Friday, Opportunity 180 already had collected more than $4.1 million in committed or cash donations from the Englestad Family Foundation and three other philanthropic groups, Serafin said.
So, Serafin arguably saw an *opportunity* to tailor her nonprofit toward CONTINUE READING: Former TFAer/TFA Exec (shh…) Allison Serafin: From Texas, to Nevada, and Back to Texas | deutsch29