Students at the Inner Harbor East Academy for Young Scholars, a charter school in East Baltimore, have to vacate their school building on Friday because the school’s operator, Sojourner Douglass College, can’t pay its utility bills.

The college, which owns the building where the school is located at 200 North Central Avenue in Jonestown, is having financial problems, said Alison Perkins Cohen, of the city school system’s office of community engagement.

“We discovered that utilities at the school facility were due to be turned off for lack of payment,” Perkins-Cohen said.

The charter school will relocate to 2050 North Wolfe Street, the former William C. March Middle School, near Clifton Park. The building is currently used for staff development.

Financial Woes

Inner Harbor East Academy, which currently serves just under 300 students, is operated jointly by Sojourner Douglass and the East Baltimore Community Corp., according to school documents.

The K-8 school’s mid-year relocation is not a shock to anyone who has been following the travails of Sojourner Douglass, which lost its accreditation, is being sued for non-payment of rent on its now-closed Edgewater campus, and is struggling to make payroll.

The college’s financial difficulties have been known to the city school system for some time.

During the 2014 portfolio review, for example, City Schools gave Inner Harbor East’s operators a “not effective” rating for financial management and didn’t renew their contract. The charter school was slated to close this June.

Good Academic Ratings

The school’s audits showed “three years’ of negative net assets for significant amounts of money,” the review stated. (The school, however, was rated “effective” in teaching and academics, and “highly effective” in math proficiency in grades 6-8.)

“At that time,” said Perkins-Cohen, “we believed the operator had the capacity to finish out the school year. However, since that time the operator’s financial situation has become more serious.”

Inner Harbor East students will continue to attend school until Thursday. On Friday, the school will be closed to allow staff time to pack. District office staff will move the school to the new location over the weekend.

The Brew contacted Sojourner Douglass College for comment, but no one answered the phone.