news-record.com

KERNERSVILLE — Veritas Sports Academy has suspended operations while school officials try to find a way to pay off more than $2 million in debt.

In a written response to a reporter's e-mails, school officials said Wednesday that 33 of Veritas' remaining 34 students will finish the school year at First Christian Academy.

The school opened last August with 54 students, but many began trickling back to their original public schools after Veritas became strapped for cash late in 2008.

First Christian Academy is part of First Christian Church, whose basement Veritas leased for its inaugural school year while waiting to build a $17 million, 109,000-square-foot building on 15 acres in Kernersville. School officials postponed that project late in 2008.

Veritas closed Friday — a stark turn of events for a school that opened seven months ago with high hopes. In August, Veritas founder Gary Newell said the school would put as much emphasis on its sports programs as it did academics, offering free scholarships to the Triad's top athletes in baseball, basketball, golf and wrestling. School officials planned to add a football program next season.

Newell envisioned opening 72 similar schools across the nation under the Veritas name.

Newell and Terry Moffitt, Veritas' national superintendent, could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

Most of Veritas' teachers have been hired by First Christian, according to Jim Beck, a spokesman for Veritas.

First Christian principal Bryan Ross declined to comment Wednesday.

Beck said Veritas has not closed but is going through a "reorganization." He said the board of directors will meet to discuss whether the school will reopen in the fall.

"There are many decisions that the board of directors will be making that affect the future of the school," Beck wrote in an e-mail. "At this time I don't have any definitive answers on whether the school will open back up in August."

Beck said he did not know when the school's board would meet. Beck said the school owes vendors and staff more than $2 million.

In January, the private school was forced to make cuts in its athletics program while seeking private donors and public grants to stay open.

At the time, Moffitt said teachers and administrators had not been paid in full since November.

Moffitt described the school as suffering through a "considerable shortfall" because several private donors had withdrawn their financial support when the economy's downturn accelerated.

Beck said the baseball team — the only team Veritas is fielding this spring — will try to finish its season.

Contact Robert Bell at 373-7055 or robert.bell@news-record.com