BUFFALO, N.Y. — Opened in 2005, Oracle Charter School is a college preparatory school tasked with doing just what the name suggests: prepping students for the next level of their education.

But according to the SUNY Charter Schools Institute, it's fallen short of that goal.

"We're addressing each and every point that the charter school revision team wants us to address," said Oracle Charter School Board of Trustees member George Nicholas. 

According to a 55-page report, the school falls short in several areas including high percentage of teacher turnover and failure to meet test scores in core subjects like English Language Arts and mathematics.

The end result: a recommendation to refuse charter renewal and close the school for good that would leave more than 300 students, the majority living below the poverty line, looking for a new school. 

"These children have dealt with trauma living in communities where crime and violence is pervasive and this would add to that trauma, this would be another traumatic experience for this young person," said Nicholas.

School leaders say many of the shortcomings came under the institution's previous leadership, and say in the past year turnover at major positions like Head of School has changed Oracle's culture.

"We've hired consultants to do coaching. We have experienced people coming in, working with our teachers, helping them with their lesson plans, helping them address some of the issues they may face on a day-to-day basis," said Nicholas. 

With the school's future in question, school officials are actively preparing for an appeal to argue for the future of the school and its students.

"They will be able to take another look based on one, our new team that we have and two, how we reacted and responded to the critics that we didn't ignore them, but we recognized there are areas we can grow and we're taking measures to do that," said Nicholas. 

That meeting is set for January 25.