ST. LOUIS • Officials at Paideia Academy said Thursday that they will not be opening their doors for class next week, contrary to their assertions in television and radio ads that the troubled former charter school was planning to hang on.

A woman who answered the door at the school's administrative offices on North 20th Street said Paideia was no longer accepting enrollment applications and would not start class on Tuesday. The school's board members aren't giving interviews as to why, she said.

The reversal could leave hundreds of kindergarten through eighth-grade students without a school. More than 500 students attended Paideia's campuses on College Hill and Carondelet last year. Most other schools started class two weeks ago.

"This is my daughter's education," said Angela Koles, after calling Paideia and learning that her daughter, Kayla, has nowhere to attend seventh grade. "I'm very upset because they weren't up front with us about the whole thing. If they were that concerned with the children's educations, they should have told us they weren't sure they'd be opening."

Paideia's decision to close comes almost three months after the Missouri Board of Education revoked Paideia's charter school status, citing poor academic performance. That action cut off the school's access to future state and federal funds. Shortly thereafter, the school lost its lease on the building that served as its Carondelet campus on Michigan Avenue.

Nevertheless, school officials told parents up until this week they would reopen school in two locations. One of them was its College Hill campus, where crews have been working this summer to improve the school grounds.

The other purported location was the Lyon School, 7401 Vermont Avenue, a St. Louis Public Schools building that is in disrepair. But Paideia officials never had an agreement with the school district to use the building.

Koles said she attended an enrollment meeting on Aug. 20 and was told the school would hold class in the Lyon School.

Koles said a woman who answered the phone at Paideia offered to help her find another charter school for her daughter.

"They are offering that," Koles said. "If I hadn't called her and asked, would they have called me?"