Jeffrey Meitrodt

STEP Academy leaders resign as charter school faces financial collapse

STEP Academy, which has campuses in St. Paul and Burnsville, faces a deep financial crisis.

LoveWorks Academy for Arts closed abruptly this month in Minneapolis after years of low academic scores and struggling finances.

The Star Tribune requested data last February. The agency still hasn’t turned over more than 2,000 files.

Hundreds of Minnesota students are caught up each year in the often sudden shuttering of charter schools. School leaders say the closings create a cycle that sets more schools and students up for failure.

Rhode Island leads the nation in charter school performance. Advocates say adopting some of Rhode Island’s methods might help Minnesota’s struggling charter school system.

The Minnesota Internship Center had 4% attendance and 5% graduation rates, while its leader took co-workers to Topgolf, according to state records and interviews with school insiders.

Among them: Can the metro can provide enough workers? And would public officials ante up the kind of incentives necessary?

The Minnesota Supreme Court upheld the decision to pull funding from the Minnesota Internship Center; a school leader said administrators involved in falsifying records are gone.

The deal would use up most of district’s share of a recent state boost in education funding.