Gulf Shores Academy opened in 1998. The
Texas Education Agency tried to shut down the charter school for several years. At a point the school owed the state
US$11 million for over-reporting attendance.
Harris County prosecutors said that the original founders of the academy sold forged transcripts to undercover investigators. The school moved around from location to location and had a high teacher turnover rate. In 2006 its student body count was between 500 and 600. In 2008 the
U.S. Department of Justice criminally charged the school's leader, Linda Johnson, along with document tampering due to the school making false academic transcripts, as parents paid her to create transcripts not reflecting actual academic performance. Johnson received a federal prison term of two years. In the late 2000s the
Windsor Village United Methodist Church took over the school. Originally the church planned to use the former charter, but it decided to ask the
Houston Independent School District (HISD) to turn the campus into a district charter. The HISD board voted regarding turning Leader's Academy for High School for Business and Academic Success into a district charter. Members of the charter school's board of trustees as of 2009 included
Rod Paige, the former
Secretary of Education of the U.S., and
Kirbyjon Caldwell, the senior pastor of the church. In 2011 it merged with
Benji's Special Educational Academy into
Victory Preparatory Academy after Leader's Academy's board took over Benji's School. Victory Prep was established as a charter school directly overseen by the state instead of as an HISD charter. ==Campus==