HOUSTON -- A local charter school is closed.
You'd think that would be the end of the story, but it's not. KHOU 11 News dug deeper into the confusion and mess left behind.
Inside the abandoned school in southwest Houston, KHOU 11 News found angry parents, school records and personal information left behind for anyone to find, and a lot of questions to be answered about the Girls and Boys Preparatory Academy (GBPA).
"I didn't know anything. I just found out," said GBPA parent Shelly Daniel.
What they didn't know is hurting the families who gathered in the empty school Wednesday afternoon.
"These kids are falling through the cracks," said Sheree Sample, the aunt of one GBPA student.
They were expecting to enroll their children for a new year at the Girls and Boys Preparatory Academy. Instead they found a construction zone of building repairs. The state shut down the charter school at the end of last year because of academic and financial problems.
"I didn't get any phone call, I didn't get any notification, no letter," said GBPA parent Anglique Buffalo.
She and the other parents present say the school's superintendent promised them it would be open this fall.
"He said, 'Oh no, don't worry about the rumors that you're hearing,'" Buffalo said. "We're going to get the funding, we got the funding. We're gonna still be open."
"I didn't look for another school," said GBPA parent Margot Woods.
Houston ISD's first day is Monday, and many zoned schools are completely full.
"I don't have anywhere to send my son," Buffalo said.
Adding to that, some students' transcripts from Girls and Boys Prep are missing.
"I have schools that might accept her, won't accept her because she didn't have this test, that test, she doesn't have a transcript, she doesn't have a completed report card," said GBPA grandparent AJ Felix.
It doesn't end there. KHOU11 News has been digging into this since last week when Anthony Madry showed us a Pandora's box of past students' personal information, including medical records, and copies of birth certificates, social security cards and driver's licenses.
Madry says he discovered the stash when he moved into the building to open an early education center. He's already familiar with the place because he served as principal of Girls and Boys Prep during the 2013 to 2014 school year.
"You didn't put that child first," said Madry, looking around at the boxes of records. "You didn't put these children's records first. You didn't protect the families you were supposed to be serving."
The Texas Education Agency (TEA) says when school leaders packed everything up and moved out, they were required to hand over all records to the state, but that didn't happen.
"Now these families are having to worry about their identities being out there and their identities being taken and used in a way they should not be used," Madry said.
The TEA sent investigators to collect the documents on Wednesday.
"It's an ongoing complaint and we are looking into it," said one TEA investigator.
Now while the investigation continues, parents are left in limbo.
"We're just basically sad and upset and we don't know where to go from here," Woods said,
Or where their children will go Monday morning.
The superintendent, Fred Taylor, told KHOU11 News by phone that he hasn't worked for Girls and Boys Prep since January. But the TEA says that's not true and that he is responsible for the records.
Taylor stopped returning KHOU's calls, but we will stay on top of this story.
A TEA spokesperson sent this full statement to KHOU on Wednesday:
"Throughout every charter closure process, the Texas Education Agency works diligently to ensure parents have access to their son or daughter's records, as well as seeking to secure those records for future access. Unfortunately, the process is reliant on the cooperation of staff within the charter school that is being closed. In most cases, the process is carried out without incident. However, TEA does encounter instances where the best interest of the student is not always a priority among some former charter school officials. Such an attitude is often telling and may be reflective of the reasons why revocation of the charter was necessary."
