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Dallas charter school's closing hard on seniors: The good news: DISD may offer waivers to help charter students graduate(Dallas Morning News, The (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Feb. 6--A day after learning that her debt-ridden charter school had suddenly closed its doors, Koquice Fisher was at a loss to figure out how she would earn her high school diploma. "It's kind of got me stressing a bit," she said Tuesday. "I didn't expect this to happen four months from my graduation." Ms. Fisher, 17, had been a senior at Lynacre Academy in southwest Dallas. The school closed Friday. But some students, like Ms. Fisher, didn't find out until Monday. The school owed the Texas Education Agency nearly $750,000 since 2005 and filed for bankruptcy last September. But school officials had offered no warning that they would close their school in the middle of the school year, leaving seniors like Ms. Fisher wondering what to do. Lew Blackburn, the school's superintendent, said Tuesday that the board decided not to make the pending bankruptcy case known publicly. "The staff knew that we were in bankruptcy, and I suspect that some students knew," said Dr. Blackburn, who is also a trustee for the Dallas Independent School District. "We just felt like we could still do a Hail Mary. We just felt like something was going to come along." On Thursday, a bankruptcy judge ordered the school to liquidate its assets, and the school's board decided to close. The staff got word on Friday, after students had left for the day. Some students or their parents were called that day and through the weekend. Others found out only when they arrived at the school on Monday. "I was sad because I was planning to graduate this year," said Ralicia Kelley, 18, of Duncanville. "After I graduate, I plan to go to college." But even after she re-enrolls at another school, those plans could be in danger. Lynacre Academy allowed graduation under the state's minimum requirements: passing the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills graduation test, plus 22 credits and no required foreign language. Other local charter schools and school districts generally require more credits and language classes. "It's going to be hard for me to come out," Ms. Kelley said. But by the end of the day, the Texas Education Agency had a bit of good news: Some schools seemed ready to offer waivers to seniors caught by the Lynacre closing. Ron Simpson, chief communications officer for the TEA's regional service center that serves Dallas, had spent the day talking to local districts and charter schools. Dallas ISD normally requires 26 credits for graduation but was willing to let the Lynacre seniors graduate with 22 if they make a specific request for the waiver, Mr. Simpson said. The other challenge his office faced Tuesday was making sense of five boxes of student records. Once the school closed, the records were taken by the state. Students wanting to transfer to other schools must have a transcript from Lynacre, but the school had no electronic filing system, and state officials are working through the handwritten forms one at a time. Lynacre Academy opened in 1998. This year, the school had 73 students, 32 of them seniors, said Laqueeta Jones, an English teacher and part-time guidance counselor. Some of the students had been there several years, others only a few months. And while some students had been placed there by parents who liked what they considered to be an academically rich environment, others were facing a final chance at getting a high school diploma. They came to the school from Dallas, Duncanville, Desoto and other nearby districts. Christopher Sirus, 17, was a junior who had been at Lynacre for five years. He said he had liked the small classes and the chance for one-on-one learning with his teachers. He was ready to start at Kimball High School in Dallas as soon as his paperwork was ready. But he wondered about the plans of some of his schoolmates. "That school gave the kids who were at risk a second chance to go on with life and succeed," he said. Several staffers said they were as shocked as the students by the sudden closing. "It's been a struggling year," said Robin St. John, who had been the school's bus driver and administrative assistant. "But we thought we would be able to make it." She spent part of Tuesday driving some of her former students to local charter schools so they could see whether they wanted to enroll. "I let them know that all has not been lost and the battle is not over," she said. Ms. Jones had been an English teacher at the school since 2004 and had been the first and only guidance counselor there since last year. The staff knew about the money owed the state, she said, but not that the school had filed for bankruptcy months earlier. "The parents should have been notified, the staff should have been notified, the students should have been notified so we would know what was going on," she said. According to state officials, the school had overstated its enrollment for the 2003-04 and 2004-05 school years. The state pays schools based on expected enrollment, so Lynacre was supposed to send the overage back. It never did, state officials said. The school had accuracy problems to the end. A news release explaining why the school closed had the wrong phone number for the TEA regional office. The school's Web site, now offline, had pages that misspelled key administrators' names. But the small staff and student body felt like family, Ms. St. John said. "For a lot of them, this was their last chance and their last hope," she said. "They don't realize there is hope beyond hope." Staff writer Kent Fischer contributed to this report. WHAT TO DO NEXT Students left without a school by the closing of Lynacre Academy should call the Texas Education Agency Region 10 office at 972-348-1040. The students can enroll in their local public school or seek out another charter or a private school. Students must have a transcript, which will be prepared by state officials, and should expect to take an evaluation test to determine which classes would be appropriate. State officials say that seniors who have earned enough credits to graduate but have not yet passed the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills graduation test should re-enroll in school and take the TAKS review classes. To see more of The Dallas Morning News, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.dallasnews.com. Copyright (c) 2008, The Dallas Morning News Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. 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