Hola,

I'm excited to announce the location of our first Forge Prep school (5th-12th).

It is the former Aquinas Academy campus in Livingston, NJ. (Campus image below)

For 73 years, this campus served students well.

Now, with a $5 million investment we're making to renovate and modernize the facility, we're excited to build the school's next chapter.

A school for 2040, not 1940.

Forge Prep is where students apply knowledge in professional studios, get 1:1 coaching, and solve problems that matter.

A school that develops them into makers, not test-takers.

We're recruiting founding families (grades 5-8) now for Fall 2026.

If you want your child challenged AND eager for Monday mornings, please take a look.

What about the School of Entrepreneuring?

Forge Prep is that school.

SoE was always a working name, and it became clear early that no matter how much I love the made up word “entrepreneuring’, other folks didn’t.

But the ethos remains the same.

Students attain mastery by building and applying knowledge and solving real problems on behalf of others.

When they graduate, they can goto college, the workforce or if they choose to “go pro” in business, we’ll invest $200k in their venture.

WDYT? Like Forge Prep better than School of Entrepreneuring?

Reply and lmk.

And now for a couple of things I’ve been thinking about.

The School Erosion Cycle

The Montclair, NJ public school system has a $20 million deficit which sadly is not a phenomena unique to Montclair.

I dug into what happens when enrollment drops and budgets fall in school districts to understand how long it might take Montclair to get out of the tailspin it currently finds itself in.

The data is sobering with other schools taking a decade or two to recover from similar woes.

This post is pretty nerdy but for those that like to understand things at a systemic level as well as the underlying drivers, I’d encourage you to check it out.

Living in my head rent free

This graph highlighting the LA public schools drop in enrollment (25%) while the # of staff has grown 19% has been on my mind.

Mostly cuz I can’t find any way that this might make sense.

Can you figure out a good reason for why this might happen?

This took off on X when I posted it. Some people did offer justifications but IMO, they were mostly word salad.

Alright. That’s it for today.

If you like what we’re doing with Forge Prep, tell someone and/or just like & comment on this post from LinkedIn here.

Love,

Anand

P.S. We need a mascot now. I like Honey Badgers, but there is some disagreement on the team.

So if you like the name Honey Badgers, reply to this email and lmk. Then I can forward your email to my co-founder and tell him that the people have spoken as that will help me make my case.

I thank you for your support.