In a unanimous vote, the board of Erie's Public Schools voted to forfeit Erie Rise Leadership Academy's charter, which would force the school to close by June 30th.

The charter school narrowly avoided a shutdown three years ago after agreeing to improvement benchmarks, in return for the district granting its charter.

Rise did not reach those benchmarks, forcing the board to shut the school down.

But some faculty from Erie Rise argued that due to the pandemic, they didn't get a fair shot.

"When we went through the pandemic, and this agreement was made to keep our charter, that agreement's metrics were set pre-COVID-19 pandemic," said David Krakoff, Director of Education at Erie Rise.

"It's very unfair, and inaccurate to hold us accountable for goals that were set. And then kids for a year and a half's time learned from home. And many of our students didn't have access to the Internet during that time."

Erie's Public Schools say that even after the pandemic, Erie Rise's academic performance failed to improve, while Erie's Public Schools student grades improved. 

Some parents are glad to see the school gone, saying even before the pandemic, Erie Rise had it's issues.

"I think it's probably the best thing that needed to happen for the City of Erie, I'll be 100% honest with you," said James Black, a parent of former Erie Rise students.

"You have a lot of new people [that are] currently coming into the school that have no clue of the mismanagement that school has been under for a plethora of years. I've had to deal with this school in manners of, 'Hey, could you at least make sure that my son could read?'"

But some staff argue that, given until the end of the year, Erie Rise would have reached the benchmarks set three years ago.

"It's unfortunate that all of the gains that we made, nobody would know them," said Michael English Sr., Principal of Erie Rise. "Because tonight's vote silenced a great success story."

Erie Rise's closure means dozens of faculty will have to search for new jobs, and 286 K-8 students will need to find a new school by September.