Charlotte Private School Cancels Basketball Program, Demands Money from Parents

A group of parents from United Faith Christian Academy claim the school is demanding payment to release students transcripts after abruptly ending the 2024-2025 basketball program. Last year, the basketball team at United Faith Christian Academy went to the state championship with a 25-3 record.

UFCA is one of the top private high school basketball teams in North Carolina. Brian McLaughlin’s son Izayah is one of several seniors on the 11 member United Faith Christian Academy basketball team. 

“He’s frustrated. He’s very sad,” McLaughlin said. “This year, we were chasing a state championship. We just came off a very disappointing loss last season.”

The team has been to the state championship three years in a row, attracting the attention of college recruiters. The team was scheduled to start preseason workouts this week.

“He got two colleges that are interested in him and wanted to come see him play,” McLaughlin said. “For United Faith to snatch that rug from up under him as a parent it’s just tough.”

Coach Darrion Holloway has spent six years with the team. He has been the head coach for two years.

Holloway says he visited the school in late August to get updates after his emails and calls went unanswered. That’s when he says school leadership told him the fate of the program.

“A lot of it was financial, culture reset, was a little bit of it,” Holloway said. “We had some back and forth about what exactly that means and I was told that they want everybody at the school to be faith first, education second, and athletics third.”

Holloway says after his meeting with school leadership, he asked when they would notify parents. He says the school never answered and less than 24 hours later his school email was deactivated.

Holloway decided to notify parents himself because he felt parents deserved to know. Parents pay up to $14,000 a year for their child’s tuition.

“We’ve had kids that have been there since seventh or eighth grade, and they wanted nothing more to graduate with the people they started with,” Holloway said.

Parents say the school has still not officially notified them about eliminating the basketball team, but they were told they would need to pay a $1,000 fee and a portion of tuition to pull their child out of school. As they worked to withdrawal, they contacted Charlotte Attorney William Harding.

Harding sent a letter demanding that the school release the students’ transcripts and refund tuition. Harding says the school had an obligation to tell parents sooner. The school’s athletic website says, “Our ultimate goal is to provide our invaluable student athletes with transformative experiences that will undeniably leave a lasting positive impact on their lives and propel them towards outstanding achievements in their future endeavors.”

“At the very least, it was an issue of misrepresentation. At the very worst, it’s fraud,” Harding said. “These students have made a great commitment to this school, one of my clients, their family relocated from Maryland to come here because they believed so much in this school and they were given assurances.”

During the interview with WCCB Charlotte, Coach Holloway received an email from North Carolina Independent Schools Athletic Association that governs private school sports. The email says the NCISAA will waive a rule which would have forced transfer students to sit out of sports for 120 days.

Parents count that email as a partial win because they say the school is still asking for a $1,000 fee and a portion of tuition to release the children’s transcripts.

“We ask them to allow us to take our child elsewhere so he can have all of those options available to him. He’s being recruited. This is his senior year,” McLaughlin said.

WCCB Charlotte reached out to the school via email and phone but never heard back. Attorney Harding says he hasn’t heard from the school either, but he says he is prepared to take them to court if they fail to release the transcripts without a fee.

UPDATE: (Sept 8, 2024) More than 48 hours after requesting an interview as a part of the original story, UCFA’s Head of School Mireidy Carthen sent a press release via email.

The release says in part, “In effort to clarify and strengthen our mission, our school communicated to our athletic department how we would be
accomplishing these efforts in the coming school year. The basketball coach, unfortunately, was not in alignment with the school’s leadership in the direction, and he chose not to continue his employment with the school within these parameters. With his sudden departure right before school began, families were told that the basketball program would not exist and have been told they need to move their children from the school.”

The release goes on to say, ” We have instructed our legal counsel to reach out to their lawyer to resolve their concerns and bring resolution to this matter as quickly as possible. Our desire is to assist them in this transition and help them resolve these concerns.”

The release also claims the school plans to have a team and hire a new coach. “Our school has every intention of hiring a new basketball coach and having a team this year as we have had in previous years. Due to this change, we have changed our status with NCISAA to provisional to allow our school to continue our athletics program but in a manner that supports the Gospel-centric mission of our school. Because of this change, students transferring from UFCA to another NCISAA member school will not be subject to the 120-day transfer rule, and those who reclassified while at UFCA
will retain their additional year of eligibility.”