Barely one year after Einstein Academy Charter School was launched, the Morrisville Borough school board last night decided to pull the plug on what once was the state's largest Internet-based charter school.

By a vote of 8-0, with one abstention, the board revoked the charter it had granted last year.

"It is a sad and disappointing day for me," said board member Tricia Coscia. "But I feel it would be irresponsible to continue this charter in this form."

The school has been embroiled in legal battles with school districts and funding battles with the state Department of Education since its inception.

An Einstein Academy official said last night that it would file an appeal with the state's charter school appeal board.

"There is a very good possibility that we will be able to continue through the school year - if the teachers stay," said Barry Delit, head of Einstein's board of directors.

Delit said he planned to urge parents and teachers today not to give up on the school.

"We did not lose; we had a temporary setback," Delit said he would tell parents and teachers.

A spokesman for the state Department of Education, Jeff McCloud, said Einstein Academy would be permitted to operate throughout the appeals process.

Last night's decision came after the Morrisville board held a series of hearings to determine whether the school should be closed on grounds it had mismanaged its finances and failed to provide adequate special-education services.

Even though Morrisville Superintendent John M. Gould supports the concept of online education, he said he thought that Einstein's funding and administrative problems were so grave that he urged school officials not to resume classes last month.

Einstein Academy officials decided to open the school anyway. They have operated the program with the help of parent volunteers and 16 teachers and administrators who continued to work without pay.

Even though the Internet-based school enrolls students from kindergarten through high school from across the state, Morrisville awarded the charter that enabled Einstein to open for the 2001-02 school year.

Once the largest of the state's eight online charter schools with 3,000 students, Einstein's enrollment had dropped to 662 students this fall. Students receive instruction in their homes through the Internet and e-mail their assignments to their teachers. Einstein bills students' home districts for their tuition.

Many districts have refused to pay. The Department of Education has authority to withhold money from those districts and send it to Einstein. But in recent months the department stopped forwarding the money to Einstein because it said the school had not provided special-education services to students or properly documented student enrollment.

Delit said the state owed the school $2.5 million from the last school year, as well as funds for this school year.

McCloud said he was not sure when the state's seven-member appeals board would schedule a hearing on Einstein's appeal.

"There is no specific time frame," he said. "Sometimes they move quickly. Considering the interest in this - and the importance of it - I think they would try to get it onto the calendar as quickly possible."

McCloud said that charters for only two schools had been revoked since the state's charter law was passed in 1997 - Creative Educational Concepts Charter School in the Chester Upland district and Thurgood Marshall Charter in Wilkinsburg. He said the board upheld both revocations.