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A last-ditch plan to revive the shuttered trades-focused charter school ACE Academy has fallen through.

ACE board member Tom Goodhue confirmed on Tuesday that hopes for the public-private academy to partner with Portland Public Schools had fizzled.

The plan involved relocating some ACE programs to PPS’ Benson Polytechnic School while a larger deal with PPS was solidified. ACE had applied to be a PPS charter school as early as the 2017-18 school year.

Goodhue said the problem was on ACE’s end.

鈥淲e were optimistic about being able to do something with the Portland school district, but it fell apart at the last minute when it was time for us to get our proposal together,鈥� he said. 鈥淲e still have an organization and we’re looking for opportunities to partner with schools that have existing programs and trying to expand on them 鈥� I haven’t given up.鈥�

ACE was founded in 2008 as the Oregon Building Congress‘ Academy for Architecture, Construction and Engineering. It was pitched as a way to combat the construction labor shortage by reinstalling technical education in high schools.

Administrators originally intended to enroll 500 students, but lowered that goal to 200, then 175. Along with flagging enrollment, the ACE board of directors dealt with waning interest from two of the four partner districts.

ACE was funded by state dollars funneled through its four partner districts. In the school’s final year, $709,000 of its approximately $800,000 budget came from the districts, while the remainder was donated by private interests like Associated General Contractors.