When Midtown International School (MIS) announced on Monday, March 31, its unexpected and immediate closure, parents began questioning the school’s finances and requesting information from school leadership and the board of trustees.
Parents soon discovered that a newly-recruited MIS board member bought the building in an effort to financially save the school. With the school closing six weeks early – and staring down a week of spring break – parents demanded access to board members for answers.
A letter written to parents by MIS board members Anneke Bates, Brett Curry, and Chaitra Chambers stated that the decline of re-enrollment and demand in scholarships and financial aid made operations “unsustainable.”
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• Private schools step up to support students from Midtown International School
April 2 meeting with parents
Rough Draft obtained an audio recording of an April 2 virtual meeting held with a group of parents, school leadership, and board members.
With around 90 people in attendance, Bates started the meeting by introducing herself as the parent of a former student “gone from MIS long enough that most of you probably don’t know me.” She said she’s seen each class shrink over the years.
“I joined the board as a parent and remained on the board because I care so much about this place, so I’ve been a part of the team figuring out how to keep it running,” Bates said weepily. “We recognize we owe you an explanation of how we got here and what’s happening.”
Curry said during the virtual meeting that MIS will enter Chapter 7 Bankruptcy – which still had not occurred at the time of publication – then explained the decision to close the school.
Financial timeline
In summer 2025, Curry was asked to join the board of trustees by Head of School Ashley Scott “at a time when the school was facing significant and longstanding financial challenges.” A statement sent by Curry’s personal attorney to Rough Draft claims Curry “worked with fellow board members to pursue all reasonable options to stabilize the school, including forbearance, refinancing, and restructuring efforts.” The current mortgage is $45,000 per month.
In the April 2 meeting, Curry called the mortgage “unsustainable.” He explained that in October 2025, MIS approached the mortgage company about its options. Forbearance was granted through the end of the calendar year with the stipulations that MIS sell the building.
MIS announced the decision to close the high school “to preserve resources and try to save the Kindergarten through eighth grades.” Several parents said the handling of shutting down the high school was supportive, communicative, and “the way schools should be closed,” which made the way in which MIS handled the sudden closure of the entire school such a shock.
The building at 1575 Sheridan Road was put on the market. Several offers were submitted, including one from DeKalb County, but none allowed the school to remain in the building at a price it could afford.
By December 2025, MIS sold the building to Midtown 1575 LLC, a company formed in Delaware by board member Curry, and netted some proceeds.
“There was a loan that the school had outstanding that had to be paid, and all the other money that the school netted from the sale of the building went to operational expenses in January,” Curry said in the April 2 meeting.
Curry maintains that the “retention rate was too low, and the number of new applicants was also low.” Midtown 1575 LLC waived nearly $100,000 in rent to MIS in order to extend the school’s operation.
History of debt
A series of financial shortcomings forced the school’s closure.
Formed in 2013, MIS was operating at a deficit for at least eight of those years, and repeatedly missed the deadline to pay DeKalb County taxes. A 990 tax form lists the school’s 2024 revenue at $3.63 million, while expenses were $3.83 million.
Midtown International School finances 2014-2023
| 2023 | 2018 | ||
| Revenue | $4.06 | Revenue | $3.69 |
| Expenses | $4.08 | Expenses | $4.34 |
| 2022 | 2017 | ||
| Revenue | $3.94 | Revenue | $3.23 |
| Expenses | $4.68 | Expenses | $3.66 |
| 2021 | 2016 | ||
| Revenue | $5.85 | Revenue | $3.0 |
| Expenses* | $5.23 | Expenses | $2.75 |
| 2020 | 2015 | ||
| Revenue | $4.3 | Revenue | $2.41 |
| Expenses | $6.12 | Expenses | $1.61 |
| 2019 | 2014 | ||
| Revenue | $3.99 | Revenue | $962,299 |
| Expenses | $4.99 | Expenses | $974,894 |
* Numbers are represented per million unless otherwise noted.
**In 2021, financial aid scholarships were awarded to 108 students totaling $1.3 million.
After the 2025 building sale
For the next three months, Scott was charged with determining how many students would return for the 2026-27 school year. MIS accepted new students for fall, tried to recruit from other schools, and began taking deposits from returning students.
But after losing more than 20 students who paid full tuition and a 30% drop in applicants for the 2026-27 school year, Curry said the financial situation was no longer sustainable.
On March 26, Scott reported the financial forecast to the board, who voted the following day to close the school. Staff were alerted that weekend.
“We realized … if we tried to push to next school year, we will be taking more money from parents and still have a high likelihood that we wouldn’t be able to have school in the fall. So that’s why we made the call to close the school,” Curry told the parents.
Parents question MIS accounting
One elementary school parent paid a $9,200 deposit in March for the 2026-2027 school year. He’s thinking about proceeding with a lawsuit.
“They took our money, ostensibly knowing that they’d be closing,” the parent said. “How is that not fraud with a capital F? How is that not potentially criminal?”
Several parents also pointed out that the board never mentioned to them that the school was in “dire straits,” nor did the board or school officials ask parents to help fundraise or secure emergency grants to stabilize the finances.
Another frustrated parent said parents would have stepped up to help save the school. “I would have run an analysis … to simulate a million different ways to sort this out,” the parent added.
A mother on the April 2 call questioned the school’s accounting. “The money that you gathered for this year – how was that not allocated to run us through May? We’ve all paid our tuition for the entirety of this year …we should have been solvent through the end of the year.”
Scott responded: “I inherited a lot of debt.”
“Tomorrow I don’t have a job. I have committed 13 years of my life to this school when I could have gone other places. But I believe in the mission of this school and the students that are committed to this school. It was not my decision to close the school,” Scott said.
An exhausted parent piped up: “They worried that if they were too clear that the school was in jeopardy of closing, more people [would] bail. They did their best to push it up to the end, hoping to save it, and unfortunately, didn’t engage us because they didn’t trust the community to stay and show up … It’s really heartbreaking that that mistake was made, and I wish that y’all would just take responsibility for concealing this until it was too late, but that’s not really happening, so we could probably move on.”
Make up of the board
With only three voting members – Curry, Bates, and Chambers – Scott was not included in the vote to close MIS.
“All money that comes into school, all tuition, projected income, all that stuff, is shared with the board. The board votes on the decisions. I had no vote in the decision. All I do is pass on information that I have received,” Scott said during the meeting.
Represented by his own agent in the real estate transaction, Curry said he recused himself from all board discussions and votes related to the matter. The decision to sell the building to Curry was seemingly left to two board members: Bates and Chambers.
MIS is a niche school, catering to twice exceptional students. Compared to similar local independent schools, the number of MIS board members was inadequate.
Friends School of Atlanta (FSA) has a dozen board members made of parents, alumni, teachers, and members of the Atlanta Friends chapter. FSA’s board includes committees that oversee finance, development, and racial justice. With half the student population, Courage Schools in Sandy Springs has six board members in addition to a board chair and treasurer made up of current and former parents, education professionals, and current and former staff members. MIS was operating without board committees, a board treasurer, or a member at large.
MIS maintains that for the previous decade, “one or two board members” have had professional accounting experience. Baker said that “every single board meeting, we review enrollment and the budget, and we vote on raising teacher salaries and what tuition should be the next year.” Parents were allowed to attend the quarterly MIS board meetings.
According to the National Council of Nonprofits (NCN), board members are held to three standards: duty of care, duty of loyalty, and duty of obedience by law. Boiled down, this means they’re expected to exhibit honesty and good faith, keep the nonprofit separate from personal interests, and act in accordance with the body’s bylaws.
NCN states that a board does not exist solely to fulfill legal duties and serve as a fiduciary of the organization’s assets. Board members provide guidance by contributing to the organization’s culture, strategic focus, effectiveness, and financial sustainability, as well as serving as ambassadors and advocates.
April 7 letter to parents
MIS closed its doors on April 3. Many families had already left town for a previously planned spring break when they received the following email from the board on April 7.
Dear MIS Families,
We want to let you know that all future Blackbaud tuition payments have been canceled. You should not receive any further communication from Blackbaud regarding future payments. Also, as noted in GroupMe, tomorrow’s meeting has been postponed as we work with our financial and legal advisors. We will reach out when more information becomes available.
Sincerely,
MIS Board of Trustees
Bates told Rough Draft “the school is assessing its financial situation and liquidating its assets. During this process, the school is not making payments to creditors, including tuition reimbursements. The school intends to report to the members of our community in late May.”
One parent said he’s skeptical he’ll see his money back. His child’s class has started a pod with former MIS teachers – as have other grades – to finish the year’s curriculum.
“What do I want to happen next? I want accountability. I want someone from that worthless board to tell the parents why there was no oversight. I want the board to explain how and why the building was sold, purportedly below market value, to a sitting board member. I want to know why they thought it was okay to use our deposits for next year on this year’s debt but not tell us,” the parent said.
“And I want to know why they’ve put us parents in this position with six weeks left in the school year,” they continued. “I’ve come to terms with the fact that I’m not getting my $9,000 back, but not with the fact that our kids are finishing the school year in the basement of a synagogue and us paying teachers out of pocket.”
Bates said students have already accumulated enough teaching hours to receive full credit for the year. In a FAQ page on the school’s website, it states: “MIS is an accredited school, and students have met the required instructional time for the complete academic year. The above statements remain true regardless of how families choose to spend the remaining days of April and May 2026.”
