The School burns, AGAIN!

The history of this school is quite a story. Founded in 1964, sitting on an 8 acre parcel (also listed as 5.94 acres) at 1250 N Maitland Ave in Maitland, Florida once stood the Central Florida Christian School. Feb 7, 1981, the original building and everything inside was destroyed by a fire started by 3 current students during a robbery.

The school was temporarily relocated to the Maitland Presbyterian Church , where Arthur Froehlich was the pastor to complete the school year. After 90K of insurance and an unknown amount of donations gave the Froelich’s the ability to rebuild the school. It was a duplicate floorplan of what was there, only built log cabin style.

In 1986 Arthur Froehlich died of a brain tumor, and Esteleen passed in 1991.

Richard Miller and his wife, a previous student, took over the school in 1992 keeping the same name.

At some point the school was under the Masters Academy name – but I need more info there.

Summit Charter School took over in 2000, hosting students K-8 with learning disabilities.

2003 the school made the news for various corruption scandals

By 2008, the school was so in debt from mismanagement, an audit was called. The audit revealed that Principal Steven Palmer was being paid $217, 654 a year, which by comparison, an average principal’s salary in the county is $83,000 a year. The school also paid Holly Wilkey, an office manager, and Palmer’s sister, $45,500 a year. Yashmin Moledina, a bookkeeper, was also being paid $122,000 a year.

The audit also revealed that Steven Palmer and Alan Smolowe had purchased two cars through the school, and later traded them in for a $47,000 truck. The two men racked up “questionable expenditures” of more than $15,000 for meals, hotels, airlines and other travel expenses. Because there were no receipts, the auditors could not determine if any of the trips were for the benefit of the school. All this was done without approval by the school’s board of directors. It was also difficult to notice as bookkeeping records were altered and Summit’s tangled finances included eight accounts in four banks.

The downward spiral ended with a bankruptcy in 2009, with 2.5 million in debt.

The doors were finally closed in 2011… Well, if you don’t count the doors and windows being opened for vandals…

June 11, 2022. Just before 12 p.m., over 60 firefighters were called to the structure fire, according to the Maitland Fire Rescue Department.