EL PASO, Texas -- According to the superintendent of the El Paso School of Excellence, a local charter school, the owner of the charter has threatened to take action that would essentially close the school.

Superintendent Jack Ammons told KFOX the family that owns the charter has threatened to return the charter back to the state.

"If that does happen, and it's official, the school will be closed immediately," said principal Charles Gonzalez.

The closure would affect more than 400 pre-K through fifth grade students and would leave 45 employees without a job.

"I think being in the unknown zone is just, it's a bit frustrating," said first grade teacher Rigoberto Mendez.

Ammons recently closed the El Paso School of Excellence middle school because of low attendance. He said there were 35 students enrolled in the middle school.

Ammons said the middle school principal and assistant superintendent, J.L. Lewis, was then terminated. Lewis was the founder of the school. Ammons said the threat to shut down the school was made following the termination.

"You're getting all kinds of uniformed talk," said J.L. Lewis.

Lewis said he had no role in whether the charter would be returned to the state or not.

"The charter holder is Karen Belknap," said Lewis. "She lives in Dallas."

According to Ammons, what Lewis failed to mention was that Belknap is his sister.

Lewis also left out the financial problems that have plagued the charter school for years.

An article from the Dallas Morning News stated the Belknap family has come under fire for its handling of charter schools. The Belknap family also owns the charter to three schools in Dallas.

Another article from the Dallas Morning News in 2008 showed the results of an audit by the Texas Education Agency. According to the Dallas Morning News, the audit found the El Paso School of Excellence owed more than $87,000 dollars to TEA. The article stated that it and other charter schools collected the funds "either by inflating the number of students in their classrooms or by making accounting mistakes." KFOX was unable to contact TEA to verify the information while working on this story over the weekend.

"I have balanced the budget for nine and a half years," said Lewis.

But Ammons said he was eventually appointed by the state as superintendent of the El Paso School of Excellence because of the school's financial problems.

Lewis told KFOX, "There was absolutely no reason for Jack Ammons to be appointed by the Commissioner of Education."

Ammons said he is trying to do what is best for the students of the school saying, "We want to finish the year out for the sake of the children and the parents."

On Saturday, the charter school's teachers helped move the pre-K into the same building as the other grades.

"We're showing an honest effort to try to move the classes over to this location so that we can show considerable savings in our budget," said Gonzalez.

Gonzalez said classes will resume as normal, and as of Saturday evening, the charter had not been returned to the state.

There will be a PTO meeting on Thursday in the school's cafeteria to discuss the matter.

KFOX will continue to follow this developing story as "Coverage You Can Count On."