All-boys charter school in Chatham County to close just months after opening

A new Chatham County charter school will have to close just a few months after opening, due to low enrollment.

The North Carolina State Board of Education voted Thursday to close the School of the Arts for Boys Academy in Pittsboro. The third-through-sixth-grade school has only 49 students, below the 80-student minimum required by its charter. Eighty students is the number the state considers necessary for the school to be financially viable.

The state's Charter School Review Board voted to revoke the school's charter in November. The school appealed to the State Board of Education, but the state board rejected that appeal Thursday.

While students don't pay tuition, the public charter school is funded partly through state and local per-student allocations.

The school received state funding for 116 students, based on earlier projections. Adjusting funding for actual enrollment would mean the school had already spent most of an entire year's worth of state funding by November, state officials said.

On Aug. 10, the state Office of Charter School said the school could apply for delay in opening. The school had already delayed opening by a year. School officials decided to proceed with opening in August.

In their appeal, they offered to fundraise and open a childcare center, but state officials cautioned against betting on a childcare revenue stream that didn't exist yet.

The school must close by Dec. 31.

When charter schools close, the students' local public school systems can work with students' families to re-enroll them. Families can also opt to apply to go somewhere else.