Skills for Tomorrow

FINANCIAL TROUBLES FORCE CLOSING OF ST. PAUL CHARTER SCHOOL; November 25, 2009; Minnesota Public Radio 

St. Paul, Minn. — A charter school in St. Paul plans to close next month because of financial problems.

Skills for Tomorrow school has continually lost enrollment in recent years, which has only hurt finances, but officials say the governor's shifts in education funding this summer also contributed.

While Skills is the first school to announce its closure since the shifts, advocates for charter schools worry it won't be the last.

Every time a school's enrollment drops, so too does its state funding. That's been the root problem for the Skills for Tomorrow school in recent years. This year, it's down to just 65 students…

Piehl also confirms the problems had been building. The school had reserves it could dip into for cash flow needs, but this year, enrollment dropped too much for reserves to cover, which created the need for credit. Credit, Piehl said, that they couldn't get…

"It's true that the payment shift hurts the charter school more than the district school because the district school has the ability to tax and is a better loan risk," Walsh said. "We are working with some others that are on the bubble, so this might not be the last school you see closed." …