By Sara Ballenger

“It’s sad to close Southbay. We (the parents) all really grew in our relationships with our children, with each other and in our relationships with God.”

- Donna McCord

The electricity is being turned off, computers are being donated and supplies are being sold as Southbay Christian School officially closes its doors this summer.

Due to a drop in enrollment, the 40-year-old school in Mountain View found itself $230,000 in the red. The school had a projected enrollment for the next school year of 420 students and ended up with 206 tuition-paying students, Principal Grace Fontanilla said.

The school served students from preschool through eighth grade.

“Private schools rely heavily on gifts, grants and fund raising. Only 70 percent maximum of costs are covered by tuition,” Fontanilla said.

The school is owned and subsidized by the Assemblies of God Church on the same property.

“The church membership has gotten smaller. Now there are only 170 members supporting a 400-student school,” Fontanilla said. “The congregation raised $250,000 to cover last year and we can’t turn around in six months and ask them to raise more.”

Fontilla thinks that the world is in a time of change, but that change can be used as a learning opportunity.

“When things like job security and the economy are shifting so much, and after Sept. 11, things shifted - our sense of peace, our sense of the future and what will happen to our children. We have to teach the children how to manage change and how to cope.”

The students will experience a big change as they begin the school year at new schools. But some Southbay parents are hoping the biggest change their children have to get used to is going back to a parent-run Christian school for the 2003-04 school year.

In June, a group of parents began the process of incorporation for the school to become a parent-run school. The parents plan to start a Christian high school, since the closest one is in San Jose, Fontanilla added.

“It’s sad to close Southbay. We (the parents) all really grew in our relationships with our children, with each other and in our relationships with God,” said Southbay parent Donna McCord, whose daughter had attended Southbay since 1994.

“There is a lot of emotion and attachment to Southbay by a lot of people, and to have it just go away is painful. Maybe it just needed to revamp itself, and being a parent-run school will be an advantage,” McCord said.

For more information, call Grace Fontanilla at (408)737-0377.