Fort Snelling Academy

NEW CHARTER SCHOOL AT FORT SNELLING LOSING KIDS, CASH; May 15, 2001; Star Tribune (Minneapolis, MN)

A charter school at Fort Snelling will end the school year early because of financial trouble.

Classes at Fort Snelling Academy will end June 1 instead of June 7 so the school can begin to recoup a $300,000 budget deficit, school officials said Monday. A loss of students and the funding tied to them led to the shortfall.

Fort Snelling Academy opened last fall as a college-prep high school, wooing average students who may not have had college plans but who had the potential for higher education. It opened in September with 264 students and 11 more on a waiting list.

The school has lost about 100 students since opening day. Peter Kordell, chairman of the school's board, said half of those students left because they could not or would not keep up with the rigorous curriculum, and the other half left because the school had a chaotic environment when it first opened.

Fort Snelling Academy received its charter in February 2000 and opened in September without a permanent site or the temporary building at 5000 Bloomington Rd. that it is now using.

For the first month, students were shuffled from one location to another. At one point, they even ate lunch under a large tent…

The school was soon closed.