{"id":27119,"date":"2025-10-30T21:40:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-30T21:40:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/27119\/"},"modified":"2025-10-30T21:40:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-30T21:40:10","slug":"government-shutdown-affecting-teachers-from-closed-fort-pierce-private-school","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/27119\/","title":{"rendered":"Government shutdown affecting teachers from closed Fort Pierce private school"},"content":{"rendered":"

The government shutdown is stopping Creative Learning Lab Academy<\/a> teachers from starting wage theft investigations. <\/p>\n

Teachers at the now-defunct school weren\u2019t paid for about a month\u2019s worth of work at the private school in Fort Pierce. Each teacher has unpaid wages ranging from around $1,000 to $5,000, which they tell us is making it difficult to pay bills.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt just felt like I was just doing that [teaching] for no reason,\u201d said Tayla King, a former preschool teacher at the school. \u201cLike all that time that I put into working, like all of that was for nothing. Like I just wasted my time.\u201d <\/p>\n

King said she left her job at a different daycare to work at the preschool because she believed in owners Chris and Balanga Madison\u2019s vision to create a Black-owned school for underprivileged children. She said she loved the kids and the other staff members, but she thinks it all fell apart when the school couldn\u2019t make payroll back in August. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very in financial debt,\u201d King said. \u201cI had to try to borrow money, try do something so I can borrow rent, try to pay bills and everything. I personally feel like they owe me more\u2026 now that they put me in a financial struggle.\u201d<\/p>\n

King said she had to borrow money from family and friends to make ends meet. She said she can\u2019t afford a lawyer and since Florida dissolved its Department of Labor in 2002, she now has to file a complaint with the United States Department of Labor. King said she\u2019s struggling to get a response or anybody on the phone during the government shutdown.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t even call anyone,\u201d she said. \u201cI call the line. They hang up on me. It\u2019s just very frustrating.\u201d<\/p>\n

King said she\u2019s also frustrated she didn\u2019t get paid after spending money to decorate her classroom.<\/p>\n

The school, according to Step Up for Students, received about $44,000 from taxpayer-funded scholarships from students attending the K-12 school. WPTV reached out to the St. Lucie County Early Learning Coalition about funds the preschool received and didn\u2019t hear back by publication.<\/p>\n

Multiple teachers also told WFLX earlier this month that they didn\u2019t receive legally required background checks before they started working at Creative Learning Lab Academy. However, King said she did receive a background check. <\/p>\n

State law requires teachers and any other school employee to get a level two background investigation. Those investigations include sending fingerprints to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which did tell WFLX it had some prints on file for the Fort Pierce private school. <\/p>\n

However, multiple employees told WFLX they didn\u2019t receive any background checks before entering the school even though offer letters said a successful \u201cbackground screening\u201d was required for employment.<\/p>\n

The Florida Department of Children and Families said it is still working to get our news team information about any possible investigation or regulatory action against the school\u2019s owners for more than a month.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2025 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The government shutdown is stopping Creative Learning Lab Academy teachers from starting wage theft investigations. Teachers at the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27120,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[171,173,172],"class_list":{"0":"post-27119","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-port-st-lucie","8":"tag-port-st-lucie","9":"tag-port-st-lucie-headlines","10":"tag-port-st-lucie-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27119","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=27119"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27119\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}