FORT WORTH – The Texas Education Agency has ordered Theresa B. Lee Charter High School to suspend all operations by Thursday, which forces approximately 160 students to find an education elsewhere.

The school, operated by Youth for Education and Success, Inc. in Houston, failed to turn in a financial and compliance audit due two years ago, the TEA said. The audit is supposed to be administered by an external auditor and examines the financial health of the school.

Theresa B. Lee Charter High opened in 1988 and has struggled financially and academically in recent years, though it did have an academically acceptable rating this year.

Previously, the school over-inflated enrollment, the TEA said. That led to its state funding to be reduced.

Debbie Ratcliffe, a spokeswoman for the TEA, said it was uncertain if the over-inflated numbers were intentional or the result of sloppy bookkeeping. Still, the error means the school now owes taxpayers more than $516,000 in funding it shouldn’t have received.

Plus, in 2006, the TEA said it suspected the school cheated on the TAKS test because of significant score gains that couldn’t be explained and missing test training material.

The school, located in a commercial row in the 4300 block of East Lancaster in south Fort Worth, has been losing teachers all year, the TEA added.

Administrators reported having an enrollment of 160 students. But the TEA said in a site visit it made last week, an observer saw very few teachers and no more than 60 pupils who were either sitting in classrooms or roaming the halls unsupervised.

On Monday, TEA Commissioner Robert Scott sent a letter to the school that declared the situation unacceptable and ordered it to close by Thursday if fixes weren’t implemented and the overdue audit submitted.

The TEA said the school can still reopen if administrators correct the situation.

The CEO of the school, Ms. Artie Jackson, was in Austin late Wednesday afternoon meeting with TEA staff about the situation.

The TEA said the school’s superintendent, Dr. Jesse Jackson, said the Fort Worth campus will cease operations until further notice.

A message left at the school was not immediately returned.

If administrators can’t correct the situation, then the TEA said it will begin the process to revoke the charter, which will be the final closure of school.

E-mail jwhitely@wfaa.com