Union County charter school ‘operating illegally’ ordered to close immediately

A Union County charter school has been ordered to close immediately after state review board members say it was “operating illegally.”

Monroe Charter Academy, a K-8 charter school, planned to move across county lines to a campus in Matthews. The North Carolina Charter Schools Review Board approved the planned relocation Nov. 12, but the school did not yet have an educational certificate of occupancy and couldn’t move into its new space until it got one. The school’s relocation proposal to the board indicated it would begin instruction at its new Matthews site Nov. 17.

But as of Tuesday, the school had not gotten its certificate of occupancy from the county. Camela Ford, the school’s principal, said the delay was due to unforeseen hurdles in Mecklenburg County’s approval process.

Since Nov. 17, the school has operated remotely without permission to do so. Charter schools are typically allowed a maximum of five remote instructional days.

As a result, the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction froze the school’s state funding Dec. 5. Since then, it has been operating on local and leftover funds, Ford said.

Monroe Charter Academy leaders came before the review board Tuesday to request a 7-year charter renewal. Instead, board members voted unanimously to revoke the school’s charter “effective immediately.”

“The issue we face as a board is that the school is in operation illegally. To give it any more time…I don’t think this board can be complicit in a school operating illegally,” said Charter Schools Review Board Chair Bruce Friend.

He added that this is typically not the time of year that the board considers requests for schools to operate remotely.

“You don’t have a school building. You’re past the five days you’re allowed to go virtual. You don’t have funding,” Friend said. “I don’t know how (Monroe Charter) opens up in January … or tomorrow.”

Jim Stegall, vice chair of the Monroe charter board, said the charter schools review board treated the school “fairly.”

“We’ve twisted and turned to pursue every option to keep the school open,” he told the Charter Schools Review Board Tuesday ahead of the vote. “As hard as this is going to be for some parents to hear, and kids and staff, I know what you have to do.”

Monroe Charter Academy has operated since 2019 and currently has 101 students. It’s earned an F grade from the state for each of the last three years but has met performance growth targets during two of the last three years. However, it continues to underperform when compared to Union County Public Schools. Around 12% of the school’s students reached grade-level proficiency on state assessments during the 2024-25 school year.

The school was placed on “financial noncompliance cautionary status” last month, after its expenditures for the year surpassed its revenues by $180,000.

It’s the second time in 2025 the board has voted to revoke a school’s charter mid-year. In October, it voted to revoke the charter for Triad International Studies Academy in Guilford County beginning Dec. 30, citing the school’s total student population of 45. The state-mandated minimum student population for charter schools is 80.

This story was originally published December 9, 2025 at 2:59 PM.

Rebecca Noel

The Charlotte Observer

Rebecca Noel reports on education for The Charlotte Observer. She’s a native of Houston, Texas, and graduated from Rice University. She later received a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Missouri. When she’s not reporting, she enjoys reading, running and frequenting coffee shops around Charlotte.