{"id":101341,"date":"2025-12-31T16:54:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-31T16:54:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/101341\/"},"modified":"2025-12-31T16:54:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-31T16:54:11","slug":"orange-county-charter-school-closes-after-years-of-financial-trouble","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/101341\/","title":{"rendered":"Orange County Charter School Closes After Years of Financial Trouble"},"content":{"rendered":"

ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. \u2014 9 Investigates has obtained new financial documents, showing Legends Academy Charter School spent hundreds of thousands of dollars more than it was bringing in for at least three years. This is as more than 200 of its students are now searching for a new school<\/a> to attend next week after the board for the charter school officially voted to close its doors Monday. Parents and teachers tell 9 Investigates the school only gave them two days\u2019 notice before school let out for winter break.<\/p>\n

These records raise even more questions about why the school gave such short notice. Legends Academy Charter School is required to file tax-exempt records with the IRS because it\u2019s a not-for-profit. The latest filings from the 2023 tax year show Legends Academy spent nearly $720,000 more than it brought in. <\/p>\n

The year before, it spent roughly $645,000 more than its revenue. In the 2021 tax year, Legends Academy spent $900,000 more than it brought in. It\u2019s a sudden turn from 2020, where the school brought in $360 thousand dollars more than they spent.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it\u2019s finances that we\u2019re closing and that\u2019s the only reason that we are closing\u2014because you can\u2019t pay the teachers come January\u2014why did you pay for a new school and promise these kids, but they will never see it?\u201d said DeChandra Dudley, a parent of Legends Academy students.<\/p>\n

Property records show at the end of 2021, the school bought a new building for more than $2 million. Teachers and parents say the school still planned to move into it soon. This is despite the school selling the property to an LLC with ties to The Hope Church. The church is on the same campus as Legends Academy.<\/p>\n

For parents and teachers, they say this isn\u2019t just an inconvenience that the school closed with little notice. Parents say they are concerned their students will miss time in the classroom because they\u2019re searching for a new school. Many teachers don\u2019t know where their next paycheck is coming from.<\/p>\n

Just Tuesday, school leadership told teachers they would lose their health benefits in 24 hours, and their accrued vacation time wouldn\u2019t be paid out. Teachers were told they could pick up their personal items in their classrooms next Monday.<\/p>\n

\u201cAgain, that\u2019s cowardly. That\u2019s selfish. We have people who have families. You don\u2019t know what we\u2019re going through. And just for you to think that we\u2019re just going to sit there and accept that and not get answers\u2014I just, that\u2019s just mind-blowing to me,\u201d said Fredo Alexander, a Legends Academy employee.<\/p>\n

We asked Legends Academy Charter School Tuesday for an interview with the board or its chair. We specifically want to ask– if the school had financial problems dating back years, why parents, teachers and students weren\u2019t notified sooner about the school closing.<\/p>\n

Click here<\/a> to download our free news, weather and smart TV apps. And click here<\/a> to stream Channel 9 Eyewitness News live.<\/p>\n

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\u00a92025 Cox Media Group<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. \u2014 9 Investigates has obtained new financial documents, showing Legends Academy Charter School spent hundreds…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":101342,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[13597,23733,13604,1060,1061,48594,24896,53062,53061,634,115,53060,139,141,140,1045],"class_list":["post-101341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-ashland_webb","tag-ashlyn","tag-ashlyn_webb","tag-channel_9","tag-eyewitness","tag-irs","tag-legend","tag-legends_academy","tag-legends_charter_academy","tag-local","tag-news","tag-nun_investigates","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-video"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101341"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101341\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/101342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}