Deion Sanders ‘Prime Prep’ Academy to be shut down

By Cory Buck | Feb 3, 2015

Oct 23, 2014; Denver, CO, USA; NFL Network commentator Deion Sanders before the game between the Denver Broncos and the San Diego Chargers at Sports Authority Field at Mile High. Mandatory Credit: Chris Humphreys-USA TODAY Sports /

A charter school run by Deion Sanders, known as Prime Prep Academy, will close amid rampant financial mismanagement.

Deion Sanders made a name for himself by covering people on the football field for the Dallas Cowboys, but covering payments for his charter school is a whole different ball game. That’s why his two-campus charter school, Prime Prep Academy, will be shuttered by the Texas Education Agency amid financial mismanagement that’s been characterized as the worst they’ve ever seen.

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The Dallas Morning News reports, “New Superintendent Alan King told the board that Prime Prep had $60,000 in the bank and about $710,000 in debt. That included about $200,000 needed for Friday’s paychecks, which weren’t issued.”

So you’re telling us that an athletics-centric charter school founded by Deion Sanders and his best buds isn’t a formula for financial stability? The phrase hardly begins to describe the turmoil found in this school.

Texas Education Agency director Ron Rowell described the school’s finances as, ‘among the worst financial situations he’s seen at a charter school.’ Rowell even noted that while his investigators are poring over paperwork, they are already prepared to find illegal activity within.

“There needs to be a forensic accounting of all the transactions,” board President Albert C. Black Jr. said. “Any time it’s as bad as it is now, it leads me to believe there’s been some kind of criminal activity.”

Like, say, diverting funds intended for free or reduced lunches?

Or how about the 100 school laptops that were stolen? Who has the keys to the building again?

Much of the mess is rooted in allegations that are currently under investigation so it’s hard to say for sure who did what, but what became abundantly clear over the past year is that Prime Prep Academy was a financial disaster on its own scale.

While we don’t know the full breadth of the mess, we do know that if Deion Sanders wants to try another prep academy, he’ll need to find a new accountant.

As the Morning News notes, ‘Someone at the school stopped paying employee health insurance premiums, the Internal Revenue Service, underemployment insurance and contributions to the Teacher Retirement System of Texas. All those withholdings were funneled back into the general budget to help pay the following month’s payroll.’

Even then, that payroll came a week and a half late and now with the charter school rendered insolvent, teachers may lose out on their last month of pay. Those same teachers had weeks earlier been cycling information among students about public schools and alternate charter schools.

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