ST. LOUIS • After eight years of operating as a charter school, ºüÀêÊÓƵ College Prep will close at the end of the school year.
The closure follows an investigation into falsified attendance records and a resulting drop in state funding. The school has some of the lowest test scores among ºüÀêÊÓƵ charter schools, with 24 percent of students proficient or advanced in English and 15 percent in math.
State Auditor Nicole Galloway opened an investigation at the school earlier this year after an internal review uncovered the artificially boosted attendance records. The school’s founder and executive director, Michael Malone, resigned in November.
There are 360 students in grades 6 through 12 at the school, according to its sponsor the University of Missouri-ºüÀêÊÓƵ. The school opened in 2011 as the South City Preparatory Academy and changed its name to ºüÀêÊÓƵ College Preparatory in 2016 after it moved from south Grand Boulevard to its current location at 1224 Grattan Street. Its first and only senior class will graduate this spring.
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Lafayette Preparatory Academy charter school will take over the ºüÀêÊÓƵ College Prep building that sits just east of its elementary and middle school campus in Lafayette Square.
“Our neighbor, Lafayette Preparatory Academy, is expanding into a high school in order to meet the needs of students potentially displaced from ºüÀêÊÓƵ College Prep,†Lauren Chaney, the closing charter school’s interim executive director, wrote in a letter to families. “We have found that we share a similar mission and vision for students. (Lafayette Prep) will provide the support, relationships and excellent academics that our scholars have come to expect.â€
Lafayette Prep opened in 2013 as a grade school and will expand its campus at 1900 Lafayette Avenue to include a middle school this fall. The school is also sponsored by the University of Missouri-ºüÀêÊÓƵ. On state tests, 42 percent of Lafayette Prep students were proficient or advanced in English, and 31 percent in math.
Bill Mendelsohn, executive director of the UMSL charter schools office, could not be reached Wednesday for comment.
Charter schools are free and open to students living in the ºüÀêÊÓƵ Public Schools district boundaries. They operate under a separate board — allowing for more freedom and innovation, advocates say — while still being held to state standards for performance.
Charter school enrollment has grown to nearly 12,000 students in ºüÀêÊÓƵ, or 36 percent of the city’s public school student population.
About half of the 30-plus charter schools that have opened in ºüÀêÊÓƵ since 2000 have been shut down for academic or financial failure.