(ABC 6 News) — Rosa Parks Charter High School will be closing its doors on October 10 after 25 years of operation.

The closure comes after a months-long investigation into claims made against the school of inadequate staffing, lack of professional boundaries and more.

In April, the Minnesota Guild of Public Charter Schools, the school’s authorizer, sent a letter of concern to the school after receiving the allegations.

About a month later, the school was placed under intervention, according to a representative for the Guild, because the Guild’s board did not think that the allegations had been resolved.

The Guild was not able to go into specifics about the complaints because there are minors involved, but did say that the allegations were serious and concerning. The school denies these allegations.

A closure notice was sent to the school in July.

The school then hired a third-party investigator to disprove these claims, and asked their families for letters supporting the school.

The school had a formal hearing with the Guild on Aug. 22 to present testimony to disprove the allegations against them, but representatives from the Guild said there was not enough evidence to alleviate their concerns.

“It was a warranted a necessary decision that the Minnesota Guild board made, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s still heartbreaking,” James Zacchini, Executive Director of the Minnesota Guild of Public Charter Schools, said.

On Aug. 27, just days before the start of the new school year, the Guild made its decision to close the school, something that has been devastating and confusing for many families of the school.

The next steps will be for the school to come up with a closure plan and help its students get into new schools.

In a statement to ABC 6 News on Friday, Blair Larson, a board member and teacher at the school for 25 years, said students, staff and families are grieving the decision to close the school.

Larson said there are things the school could work on, such as maintaining their school board and having more staff, but the outcome did not have to be a closure.

“We have provided extensive documentation to our authorizer on numerous occasions regarding
complaints received, discipline policies and procedures,” Larson said in a statement. Through all of this, we have continued to provide a safe school and exceptional learning opportunities for students, as witnessed by an outpouring of community support since this news first broke.”

Larson said other measures, such as a corrective action plan, could have been taken, and the students are ultimately the ones who are most hurt by this.

Larson also filed a complaint with the Minnesota Department of Education against the Guild on Aug. 13 for not following procedures outlined in the Guild’s operating manual.

The complaint, which was shared with ABC 6 News, said that the guild did not identify areas for improvement or correction, did not ask for a performance improvement plan or written plan of correction and set a target date for demonstrating the improvements.

The school is scheduled to start on Sept. 3, and more information is expected to be released by then.