New Village Academy, the charter high school that was due to begin accepting students at the Westfield Annapolis Mall in the fall and marketed as “high school done differently,” said it will not open due to budget issues.

“At this point, no other location in the Annapolis area is available that would work — financially, logistically, or educationally — for us to open by next fall,” the school said in a letter to families signed by founder Romey Pittman and the New Village Academy Team on April 25.

The school says increased tariffs on building materials and general economic instability caused a monetary shortfall.

According to a release, the school needed a $5.8 million loan for construction. One of its nonprofit lenders, whom they did not name, backed out because their funding came from the Department of Education, which is currently re-evaluating funding to organizations, and could not risk moving forward. That left a $2.9 million budget gap.

“We knew that if we could not find a solution before mid-April, an August opening would become out of reach,” the school said in a news release. “On April 16th, our Board voted the only way it could under these unfortunate circumstances, to end New Village Academy’s launch effort for the 2025-26 school year.” New Village Academy did not say what would happen to the money it had on hand.

Originally expected to start in fall 2024, the opening was delayed after the school was unable to finalize a lease with the mall.

The school was approved unanimously by the Anne Arundel County Board of Education last year and would have been the first charter school in Annapolis in 15 years. Roughly 150 students were expected to enroll.

The plan was for the school to operate with small class sizes. Each student would be part of a 14-member “crew” with an adviser who stayed with them all four years.

In the letter announcing the decision to families, the school said it will continue looking for ways to open but was unsure what the next steps would be because “this has unfolded so quickly.”

New Village Academy did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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