Trona is shown on a map in this article as one of the authorizing school districts that helped make this scam possible. The article also describes a number loopholes exploited by this charter school, including this one:
Incidentally, the alleged scheme exposed a loophole in how the state awards money for a student’s average daily attendance. The school year is 180 days long, and a student with perfect attendance is supposed to be worth one full unit of funding. Schools lose a share of that funding based on the percentage of days the student misses. But Schrock and McManus found that a student could deliver more than his or her full share of state funding. A student might receive one full unit of funding for having perfect attendance at their traditional school. But by being enrolled for the summer, a student could receive an extra 20 percent funding that went to A3.
https://www.voiceofsandiego.org/topics/education/inside-the-charter-school-empire-prosecutors-say-scammed-california-for-80m/