ENCINITAS -- The Theory Into Practice Academy began surveying parents this week to learn if they would support joining with a home-school program in the region, given that the academy's sponsoring district may revoke its charter next week.

"We need to know how many parents would be actually interested in continuing," school board member Linda Saxon said Wednesday.

An e-mail went out to academy parents Tuesday -- the day after the school's board of directors announced it was exploring a deal with an unspecified program where children receive most of their instruction at home.

"No names were mentioned," Saxon said of the board's new option, adding that the board will not reveal what it is contemplating until after the Encinitas Union School District votes Tuesday on whether to revoke the academy's charter. "We're still hoping that (Encinitas Union) will give us that one-year reprieve."

Charter schools like the academy receive public funding but operate somewhat outside the regular school system and are exempt from some of the requirements placed on traditional public schools. In order to operate, they have contracts known as "charters" with sponsoring school districts.

The academy, which is Encinitas Union's only charter school, has been facing the threat of closure for weeks. In June, the district notified the school that it might revoke the charter because it was investigating allegations of fiscal mismanagement and conflicts of interest.

Among other things, district officials allege that the academy's board regularly failed to follow state public meeting laws and the school's principal used her position to obtain a job for her husband.

The academy's leaders have made a series of changes in recent weeks, including removing both the principal and her husband from their jobs, restructuring the academy's board, and reworking its policies.

However, district officials have described these actions as insufficient, and indications are that Encinitas Union's board of directors will vote to revoke the charter at a meeting Tuesday night at Park Dale Lane Elementary.

Academy board members have said they hope the district's board will grant them a one-year extension, so the school's nearly 300 students in kindergarten through sixth grade and their teachers have time to make other arrangements. District officials haven't appeared receptive to that idea.

The academy's first priority now is to remain affiliated with Encinitas Union, but if that doesn't work out, "we want to replicate our program as closely as possible and soon as possible," Saxon said.

Rumors have circulated that the academy might be linking up with River Springs Charter School of Riverside County. That's not the name she's heard, Saxon said. She added that the academy also isn't joining with Eagles Peak Charter School, which River Springs split from in early 2007.

Beyond that, Saxon declined to provide details about what the academy is considering until after next week's vote.

In the e-mail to parents, academy officials wrote that they wanted to re-create the school by linking up with a home-school program in the region.

"Our program would look very much like our current classrooms, with a few structural and administrative differences," the e-mail stated. "The chartering agency would take on the governance of the school, as well as the administrative side of things. However, we would have our same teachers teaching our same curriculum, which is what we want to preserve."

The biggest change, the e-mail continued, would be that the academy's students might be going to a school building four days a week and learning at home on the fifth day.

The leader of a large North County home-school program -- the Classical Academy, which has 1,700 students -- said some former Theory Into Practice students have enrolled in the Classical Academy for the coming school year.

"(But) as far as us taking over their program, it's not going to happen," said Cameron Curry, the school's chief business officer.

The Classical Academy is home-school based, meaning that "our whole philosophy is the parent is the primary educator of their student," he said, adding that children come to the school campuses only two out of the five weekdays.

If the Theory Into Practice Academy's teachers and students create their program elsewhere, they won't be able to take the chairs and tables from their current facility on Melba Road. Those items, plus anything that parents donated to the school, are Encinitas Union property, said Abby Saadat, the district's assistant superintendent of business services.

Materials that teachers purchased with their own money are the property of the teachers, and the district has heard that some academy teachers have already moved those items out of the classrooms, he added.