BAKER - Impact Charter School students will report to a new location to finish out their school year starting next week after the charter faced an eviction. 

In a statement sent to parents Friday morning, school officials said that due to the eviction notice, "remaining in the current space is no longer in the best interest of our students and our school."

On Thursday night, Impact Charter officials had a meeting with the Baker School System about where students and teachers would go if they were made to face the eviction notice. By Friday morning, a decision was made: starting Wednesday, April 16, teachers and students will report to the Old Baker Heights School building at 3750 Harding Street. 

"The high cost of rent and lack of long-term security do not align with our mission or the stability your children deserve," the email to parents said of the decision. 

A member of the former Impact board, Eugene Collins, says this is not the whole story.

In a letter to alumni, staff and parents, he alleges that the school's interim leader had a private phone call with the Superintendent of the Baker School System before the meeting where Impact was relocated, "during which the interim leader disclosed that she believed the school’s lease was likely to be canceled due to nonpayment."

"That conversation occurred before the eviction notice was ever issued, and even before the interim administration submitted a late rent payment and then issued a 'stop payment' order to reverse it," Collins alleges.

Collins says that the relocation to Old Baker Heights was "not a last-minute reaction. It was a pre-planned relocation, quietly arranged behind closed doors, and disguised as a response to an eviction that had not yet happened."

"It was a move designed to provoke a crisis, blame others for it, and appear to save the day, all while keeping parents and staff in the dark," Collins letter continues.

He goes on to allege that the new Impact administration "refused to pay the vendors who maintain the school grounds, resulting in deteriorated conditions and safety hazards."

"They then hired their own vendor, who also went unpaid, leaving the campus to fall into disrepair. The once-pristine campus, which families and children were proud of, now looks abandoned. That did not happen by accident. It is a reflection of values," Collins wrote. "Discipline issues have spiked. Long-standing staff have been dismissed. Transportation is chaotic. And now, parents are being told, without any vote or voice, that their children must finish the school year in a building many feel is unsafe and unfit for learning. We must ask: Who gains from this?"

Collins said that this was an effort to "dismantle a successful school, remove its founding."

The complete letter can be read here.