A Friday deadline to determine the future of the nearly 100-year-old All Saints’ Episcopal School passed without a decision.

&#8220It’s another nervous period of waiting,” said the rector and headmaster, the Rev. Bill Martin after the Rt. Rev. Duncan Gray, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Mississippi, and other members of the board of trustees met and decided to pursue a loan proposal from a finance company in San Antonio, Texas.

&#8220This means we could potentially find the resources we’ve been looking forward to,” Martin said.

Faculty and staff, students and parents were notified in November that the school, a boarding and day school for boys and girls in the seventh through 12th grades, could close because of financial troubles that stem from low enrollment over the last decade.

A threat of closure also arose in 2003, but after grassroots fund-raising and a boost in enrollment, the board granted the school a reprieve and other changes were made. Enrollment is at 124 students, compared to 80 at the beginning of 2003.

The prospective loan is contingent on an appraisal of the property on Confederate Avenue as an independent school.

&#8220We’ve never asked that question before,” the Rt. Rev. Duncan Gray, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Mississippi and head of the school’s trustees. &#8220We’ve had it appraised as real estate and what it would be worth if a tornado or something hit.”

In addition, school officials will have to form a new corporation to operate All Saints’, relieving four Episcopal dioceses that share ownership of the school, in Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana and west Louisiana.

The corporation &#8220would operate All Saints’ as an independent Episcopal school, thus dissolving the legal relationships between the owning dioceses,” Gray said. &#8220It would be consistent with the tradition of the school.”

School officials will begin issuing contracts to faculty, staff and students on a contingent basis, Martin said, meaning they would work or attend with the understanding that the school may close.

Gray said a decision on the loan should be made within 30 to 40 days.

Over the past three years, the school and supporters have sought pledges, held silent auctions and is raffling cash on the Internet to raise nearly $1 million to keep the school open.

Annual tuition is $24,972 for boarding students, and $7,142 for day students.