ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. -- The Orange County School District had a change of heart and decided to close Robert Hungerford Preparatory High School at the end of the year instead of next year.

The small school is one of only two magnet schools in the historic town of Eatonville. Many people told Eyewitness News it is a bad move that will impact part of the town's history.

However, the district said that it didn't really make sense to keep it open another year because they need to save money now.

While some of the students who go to Hungerford Prep are from Eatonville, others are bused in from surrounding communities because it is a magnet school for students who want to focus on hands-on careers.

Elizabeth Rose is a junior at Hungerford and recently received her certification in the International Culinary Arts Program that will allow her to own and manage a restaurant at the age of 18.

"Our senior year of high school, we get to be taken out of an area that we've known for the past three years and being thrown into another school," she said. "All they're teaching us is that money is more important than anything else."

Robert Hungerford Preparatory High School is almost as old as the town itself. In 1889 the founders made good on a promise to build a school for African-Americans who couldn't go to white schools.

"It really breaks my heart," said Ernestine Evans-McWhite, former student.

Evans-McWhite and many others in Eatonville are products of what was Hungerford High School in the 1950's. It didn't become a magnet school until 1999.

They feel like the Orange County School Board pulled a fast one Tuesday night by deciding to close the building at the end of the school year, which is a year earlier than planned.

"That's why I wasn't worried about I said maybe within that year we've got time to maybe get together and do something about it," said Evans-McWhite.

But the district said it's too late and that Orange County will save $1.2 million. The 25 employees will be transferred to other schools and the 71 students will be sent back to their home schools.

The low enrollment is the main reason the district says it can't afford to keep it open.

"It can be fixed, sure it can be fixed. But the powers that be have to fix it," said Abraham Gordon, former teacher.

Gordon was a teacher at the school, who is retired and opened a business in town. He believes the district could've done more to save the school.

"Its taking some of the pride, dignity that should be left in a town that is the oldest municipality in the United States today," he said.

District leaders say some organizations have expressed interest in leasing the building and they say Hungerford Elementary will stay open, despite initial plans to shut it down next year.