aAll Saints’ parents face deadline in attempt to save school

Published 12:00 am Friday, February 14, 2003

lhough@vicksburgpost.com

A parent group rallying to keep All Saints’ Episcopal School open is facing a fast-approaching deadline.

“We agreed to try to persuade the board that this is not in the best interest of the students or the combined diocese,” said James Carter of Jackson. “We wanted to fight this thing.”

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Carter graduated from the school in 1979, has a 17-year-old son enrolled and said the parent group formed Jan. 31 and is preparing a package to present to the boarding and day school’s trustees on Wednesday.

All Saints’, on Confederate Avenue, was founded in 1908 as a girls’ Episcopal school and now enrolls 80 eighth- to 12th-graders.

The board is made up of four representatives from the Episcopal dioceses in Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana and West Louisiana, including the bishop of each diocese, four clergymen and lay people of the dioceses. The Rev. Bill Martin, head of the school, announced last month that the term ending in May would be the school’s last due to the uncertainty of funding.

The parents’ organization is sending letters, making calls and using the Internet to ask alumni and friends of the school for pledges and support.

Alexis Frisbee, whose son Owen, 15, is a student at the school, is involved in the parents’ organization. She said she realized there are many parents who have success stories about what the school has done and meant for their children.

“The school has been a Godsend,” she said. “A school that has that much of an impact on students needs to be open.”

Frisbee said she thinks board members were encouraged by the amount of support from alumni, parents, faculty, students and staff, and that the school has a chance.

All Saints’ officials said enrollment has been rising in recent years, but an overall decline is making the operation too expensive. Twenty years ago, enrollment was 188.

Martin said there is hope. “The outpouring of support from parents after the announcement is heartwarming and overwhelming,” he said. “We will hope for the best come Wednesday when we look at what the real possibilities of saving the school are.”

Frisbee said the parent group is planning long- and short-term goals for the school, and Carter said his wish is for the school to remain open and have full enrollment of about 185 in 2008.

“We’ve got to have a surge of funds for the board to allow the school to stay open,” said math teacher Betty Woods. “We can have lots of little funds or a few big monies, and we might make it.”

But she cautioned, “It’s got to be done quickly.”