Deion Sanders’s Prime Prep Academy in the Dallas Forth Worth are of Texas has shut down due to financial reasons. According to a Dallas Morning News report, Prime Prep had $60,000 in the bank and about $710,000 in debt. That included about $200,000 needed for Friday’s paychecks, which weren’t issued. It is hard to pinpoint who deserves the blame for the financial illiteracy of Prime Prep, but the issue did not just start over night.
Someone at the school stopped paying employee health insurance premiums, the Internal Revenue Service, underemployment insurance and contributions to the Teacher Retirement System of Texas. All those withholdings were funneled back into the general budget to help pay the following month’s payroll.
The school also had no workers’ compensation insurance and was behind on rent and other bills.
Prime Prep was not scheduled to receive additional state money until late February and had no other reliable sources of funding.
Deion Sanders had great involvement in the school and its various athletic programs. Sanders brought tv film crews to the Dallas campus on many occasions as a part of the filming of his reality tv show, Deion’s Family Playbook. Deion even talked about the school’s trouble on the show.
“We know this too shall pass,” he told parents once. “I’ve been fired twice and shut down once. And we’re still here.”
This honestly just seems like grossly mismanaged funds, which tends to be a frequent occurrence with schools/school systems nationwide. Sanders had developed a good thing in the Dallas Forth Worth area with his Prime Prep Academy and was even garnering national attention with the success of both the football and basketball programs. Prime Prep had established themselves on the national scene with their high profile NCAA recruits in basketball and football. Maybe if the people involved would have focused more on the financial obligations of the school and the education of the kids, rather then recruiting and television exposure, this school would still be in the business of cultivating young minds.