GLOSTER &045; With a low enrollment and mounting debt, Pine Hills Academy stockholders on Monday voted to close the

33-year-old school.

However, some stockholders planned to meet Tuesday night to consider opening a Christian home-schooling program on the campus.

PHA has been strapped with financial problems since the beginning of the school year.

At a stockholder’s meeting in August, school officials said an enrollment of 150 was needed to pay teacher salaries and operating costs without raising tuition.

Despite donations and pledges, the school had only 95 students enrolled on Friday.

&uot;We just didn’t have the numbers to cover our expenses,&uot; PHA board member John Brown said.

Mississippi Private School Association officials had also warned the school last month to correct deficiencies by the end of the semester or risk losing its accreditation.

PHA Headmaster Charlene Newcomb praised school officials and parents for trying to keep the school open.

&uot;They’ve fought a good fight.

They hung on as long as they could,&uot; Newcomb said.

Supporters of the home-schooling option say such a program would cut costs by using fewer teachers and combining classes.

&uot;According to the MPSA, we could even have athletic teams and compete with other schools.

But we’re interested right now in academics for the children,&uot; PHA stockholder Betty Stevens said.

Stevens said parents of about 60 students have thus far expressed an interest in the home-schooling program.

Stevens said stockholders planned to sell the school’s buses and a portable building to erase a $48,000 debt that remains.

Meanwhile, some PHA parents have contacted other private academies in the area.

&uot;We’ve had a few families that contacted us in the past few days, and we expect some of those students to start classes tomorrow,&uot; Centreville Academy Headmaster Bill Hurst said Tuesday.

Wilkinson County Christian Academy Headmaster Carrie Cupit also expects to receive some additional students as a result of the PHA closure.

&uot;We’ve been contacted by several families, and we’ll do whatever we can to help them,&uot; Cupit said.