The Henderson International School, a small private institution located out on the outskirts of Las Vegas serving more than 100 kids from preschool to 12th grade, announced Friday it will close the doors on its high school next season due to financial difficulties.

What happens to its nationally-ranked and controversial boys basketball team - Findlay Prep - remains to be seen.


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Tristan Thompson, headed to Texas, is the No. 17 overall prospect in the Class of 2010.

"I'm very confident with the strong interest that key people have in keeping it going," head coach Mike Peck said Sunday night. "I'm very confident that it will continue."

The Findlay Prep basketball team is the brainchild of local car dealer Cliff Findlay, a former University of Nevada Las Vegas basketball player who has provided the financial backing for the team since it was created four years ago.

The team, made up of players from across the country, does not belong to any high school association and follows its own rules, traveling the country to play games.

The school has lost just a handful of games in its history and was the undisputed and undefeated national champion last season.

This year's team features two of the Top 20 players nationally according to the Rivals rankings for the Class of 2010. The team is 27-2; the first defeat snapped a 45-game winning streak. It is ranked No. 12 in the latest RivalsHigh Top 100 boys basketball rankings.

The team has seemingly been a lightning rod for controversy since its inception - and certainly since a Sports Illustrated profile titled "March Madness Comes to High School Sports" brought it into the national spotlight. The program's creation and success was selected as one of the ten biggest boys high school stories of 2009 by RivalsHigh.

Critics say the team is merely a group of amateur basketball players, one that lives together and does a lot of their academic work through correspondence because of their heavy travel schedule (the school has played teams from 13 states and one foreign country this season). It has been called the ultimate basketball factory.

Proponents say it is providing a service that traditional high school can not: An intensive learning environment for top high school athletes. They see it is no different than schools created to serve those outstanding in the arts.

They also say the players - each of which is given a laptop - have excelled in the classroom.

A story in The Sun earlier last week - before the announcement of the closing was made - noted that 17 graduating seniors have been academically qualified to compete in college, based on grades in 16 core classes and standardized tests - something many traditional high schools are unable to accomplish.


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Cory Joseph is the No. 7 overall player in the Class of 2010.

"I'm the first one to say the credit has to go to the guys," Peck told the paper. "I'm not the one taking the tests."

Peck told The Sun that kids who don't their schoolwork don't last.

"The kids have to be self-motivated," Peck said. "If you don't do the work and if you don't study, guess what, you aren't going to qualify."

Tuition at the school ranges from $15,000-$18,000, but Megan Hakes - a spokesperson for the Meritas Schools, an organization Henderson joined in 2005 - told the Las Vegas Journal-Review that many students do not, and can not, pay that rate.

"We have an increasing number of parents who either can't afford to pay full tuition or any tuition at all," Hakes told the paper.

Dropping the high school part of the school, she said, was a last resort.

"It was something the company studied for quite some time," Hakes told the paper. "When it became perfectly clear the high school would not be sustainable, we made the decision and informed our students, our families and our faculty."

The word came from school head Brian Siegel, who told the faculty, students and their parents late in the day on Friday.

"Despite years of intense efforts to raise enrollment and improve operations, the serious economic challenges facing our community have taken their toll," Siegel said in a letter.

"This decision came after much thoughtful consideration," he wrote. "The extreme economic challenges facing Las Vegas - including record number of foreclosures, high unemployment, and relocation of many families out of the area - have taken their toll on many Henderson families and also resulted in lower demand for our high school."

Findlay Prep's regular season has concluded. It will spend the next month preparing for the ESPN National High School Invitational in Washington in early April. The team won the inaugural tournament last spring.

From there, it's unclear what will happen.

Peck said the Findlay Education Foundation could support another existing school or opt to start a new school.

"I know there are and continue to be more options for us," he said. "It's just what's going to be the best economic model. That's what's going to have to be determined by us." Rivals