Eighty students at Pinellas MycroSchool need a new school before November.

The charter alternative high school told Pinellas County Schools in a letter that it will close by the end of October, unable to cover payroll after enrollment fell well short of projections, the Tampa Bay Times first reported.

MycroSchool, which opened in 2012, had projected 110 students this year. It enrolled 80.

"They said they don't even have money to make payroll," Deputy Superintendent Stephanie Woodford said, according to the Times.

The school had been on thin ice for months. The Pinellas County School Board gave MycroSchool a one-year contract extension on Feb. 25 after district officials said the school failed to keep accurate attendance records and claimed funding for special education services it did not provide. Board members included a long list of conditions in the contract that could lead to nonrenewal or termination.

Board member Laura Hine said at the time that Pinellas had not shuttered a charter in several years, though the district once terminated five charters over a three-year stretch. "We hope that we don't get to that point here," Hine said before voting for the extension, the Times reported in February.

The district never had to act on those conditions. MycroSchool shut down before any termination proceedings began.

Before the closure, the school had also drawn scrutiny for a low graduation rate that previously led the board to limit its charter renewal to two years instead of the five to 15 years stronger charters receive, according to the Times. MycroSchool's fix for the special education funding issue was to return the money and ask the district to provide the services, district charter schools supervisor Bonnie Solinsky told the board in February.

A separate MycroSchool location in Pasco County was shut down in 2019 over poor academic and financial performance.

The district has not named specific schools or programs where the 80 displaced students will be placed, and the exact final day of classes has not been announced beyond "end of October." Woodford said the district plans to review each student's situation individually.

"We've got to take care of each of these kids," Woodford said, according to the Times. "We're going to look student by student and see what's their best option."