The spectacular collapse of Deion Sanders’ Prime Prep Academy
The now infamous Prime Prep Academy shut its door permanently a year ago with less than an hour’s notice. Students walked away from the Dallas and Fort Worth campuses with no school. Employees left without jobs or paychecks for their final month of work.
With tears and anger, the state’s most hyped and scrutinized charter – thanks in part to co-founder Deion Sanders – ceased to exist. Long after the school’s demise, its legacy continues beyond Sanders’ reality show and former Prime Prep basketball star Emmanuel Mudiay’s entry into the NBA.
A pair of lawsuits is still active, even after others were dropped. One targets the nonprofit work that led up to creation of the school, while the other was filed by ex-Prime Prep employees against school administrators. And local, state and federal officials launched investigations into wrongdoing. The school failed not because of tough new rules meant to shut down failing charter schools. Instead, financial mismanagement fueled the slow motion collapse and led to the school’s eventual insolvency.
Former Dallas ISD trustee Ron Price served as Prime Prep’s superintendent for most of the school’s final year. (G.J. McCarthy/Dallas Morning News)
Ron Price, a former Dallas ISD trustee who was superintendent for much of the last year, was hired to turn around the school.
He said he was misled about the school finances when he was hired, misled in the final months and rebuffed when he tried to cut expenses.
“If everybody involved would have been more truthful to me and our new team, I still believe we could have saved it,” he said.
Board President T. Christopher Lewis said the school’s demise could be traced back to early mistakes made by the school’s nonprofit sponsor Uplift Fort Worth.
“The issues with Prime Prep started before Prime Prep was even formed,” he said. “That was the ultimate demise of the financial situation…I will always have a great deal of regret that we couldn’t take a great idea and great opportunity and do more with it.”
When asked to comment via text message, Sanders said “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve heard all year.” Sanders, who was fired, rehired, fired and rehired at the school, initially pitched Prime Prep as a school that would create CEOs; succeed where other public schools failed; and do “good in the hood.”
But the school was marred by controversy from the beginning (here’ a timeline with some of those details) and the perception that it focused on athletics to the exclusion of academics. In 2013, the year ended with a high-profile fight for control between Sanders and co-founder D.L. Wallace, who was forced out of the school.
Prime Prep started 2014 with hope and ambition, much like it had when the schoolopened in 2012. Here’s a look at the final 13 months of Prime Prep and particularly the financial, legal and regulatory problems that led to its closure. This story is based on news stories, lawsuits, school documents, Texas Education Agency and Texas Comptroller data and Prime Prep’s bank register.
January, 2014. Enrollment: 580. State Funding: $397,867
- Prime Prep started the year under investigation by the Texas Education Agency. The TEA was looking into allegations of conflicts of interest, failure to perform requiredcriminal background checks, inadequate financial reporting, lack of highly qualified The spectacular collapse of Deion Sanders’ Prime Prep Academy | | Dallas Morning News: