Facing potential closure, New Life Schools in southern Cumberland County has been given a new May 1 deadline to raise $100,000 and enroll more new students in order to keep its doors open next year.

The school has raised $45,000 and tentatively enrolled 14 new students in the last five weeks, school Administrator Betty Lou Weaver said, meaning that the school is at about the halfway point for its fundraising and enrollment goals.

“Here’s where we are. Because that April 1 was an arbitrary date, because we raised $45,000 and have a tentative new enrollment of 14 (students), our plan was we had to have $100,000 and 28, 29 new people,” Weaver said. “We’ve been granted an extension until May 1. May 1 is a drop-dead date … to see if we can do that again.”

Weaver said if the money or enrollment goals weren’t met by then, “we have to close. So that’s it. I think nobody thought that we were going to raise almost half of it.”

“Our board met in February,” Weaver told The Herald in March, “our church board/school board, which is one and the same, and because we’ve been losing enrollment over the last three years, we just don’t have enough student enrollment to carry it on like it’s been going.”

Twelve people are employed at the school, which currently has about 50 students enrolled. The goal is to have about 78 students enrolled for next year, she said.

The private school — affiliated with New Life Assembly of God just north of Farmville on Route 45 — offers a K-12 education.

Pastor Bill McIntosh couldn’t be reached for comment.

She said in March the board said, “‘Betty, if you can raise $100,000 between now and the end of school, you can continue. If you cannot, we’re going to have to close.’ Because that would get us out of debt and also do the necessary computer, technology upgrades.”

“We have been as high, within the last five years, as 100-120 (students). In the last three years, we’ve gone from like 95 to 85 to 75,” Weaver said. “And this year, we started around 50. We’ve lost a few.”

The day care program for children ages 2-4 wouldn’t be affected by the closure, Weaver said.

If the decision were made to close the school, “We will continue through this school year, which will take us through May 20,” she said. “The actual official closing date would be June 30 because our school year runs July 1 through June 30.”

New Life Schools has been in operation for 31 years, she said. The school began offering education through the eighth grade. “We built the K-12; our first graduating class was 2005,” Weaver said.

She said that some fundraisers for the school are coming up, including a Spring Fling on Saturday, April 23, from 8 a.m.-2 p.m. at the school.

“I just think it was the paper and the word-of-mouth knowledge that the school may close,” she said of the success of the ongoing fundraising and growing enrollment. “We’ve never indicated ever in 31 years that we were having financial difficulty or the possibility of closing. Just the knowledge of putting it out there has shocked people.”

The school has received many small pledges, she said, and is currently enrolling students for next year.