TITUSVILLE, Fla. – An administrative law judge ordered troubled charter school Legacy Academy to close, leaving parents scrambling less than a week before the start of the new school year.
The 51-page order was signed Tuesday by Robert Telfer III, the administrative judge overseeing the complaint involving the 137-student school, reports News 6 partner Florida Today.
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The move means students will now have to be absorbed into other surrounding public schools, Brevard Public School District officials said.
Some parents had not yet received notification of where their students will be placed.
“We already bought the uniforms. Why wouldn’t they tell us about this?” said a stunned Carshonda Wright, whose 9-year-old daughter attended Legacy. “I feel very betrayed. They waited not even a week before school started to do this. They didn’t say anything.”
In a statement released to FLORIDA TODAY, Jane Cline, Brevard Public Schools’ assistant superintendent for elementary leading and learning, said: “Our role as educators is to provide a free education to our kids.”
The district has to do what’s right for the 137 students who attended Legacy Charter, she said.
“Getting them registered in Brevard Public Schools so they can start on Monday is our main focus and priority right now,” Cline said.
Brevard County Public Schools sought to have the charter campus, located at 1923 Knox McRae in Titusville, shut down this week because it failed to meet academic and fiscal standards, according to court documents.
Besides a decline in student performance, a formal audit pointed to an ongoing lack of progress maintaining federally required standards involving special needs students.
Wright said she enrolled her daughter in the charter school because of underlying medical problems, but now she's concerned about where her daughter will end up.
The charter school — which hosts students from kindergarten to sixth grade — has faced closure twice before.
In 2017, the school was slapped with an immediate termination notice for failing to produce a certificate of occupancy at its first location, along with proper health insurance, or successfully completing its required health inspections.
Not clear with Tuesday's ruling is what will happen to the 20 positions, including teachers, at the school.
School officials could not be reached late Wednesday.