Kapil Mathur

Founder and Executive Director @Orange County Academy Of Sciences And Arts

Laguna Niguel, CA, US

As the Founder and Executive Director of the growing Orange County Academy of Science and Arts (OCASA), I set out form a public charter school that would provide a tuition-free education for Kindergarten through 12th grade students allowing for the diversity in personalities, individual strengths, the various nuances that makes every student unique, and provides for a greater understanding of self. This successful charter school initially began without resources, and only a handful of volunteers. In 2015 I wrote the petiton for OCASA K-8 School, and received approval from the Orange County Department of Education within four months. This approval was a unanimous 5-0 vote with no conditions, and the first time a charter school was approved in the county without changes. Governed by a nonprofit Board of Directors, OCASA complies with Government Code Section 1090.In August of 2016, 270 students began their first day of instruction on our campus in Laguna Niguel, California. Now in our fourth year of operation, we have a student base of 400 with a waiting list of an additional 400 students. As the need for this type of personalized, public education increases, and as our student base moves to older grades, we have once again petitioned the Orange County Department of Education with a strategic plan to open OCASA College Prep for grades ninth through twelfth in San Juan Capistrano, California. Our petition has been approved, this time with an unanimous 7-0 vote. We are looking forward to more future growth and expansion of the OCASA education system, as many entities are looking to help scale and grow this learning environment that helps facilitate individual growth of the personalized learning for each student.