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OAK RIDGE — Oak Ridge Military Academy, struggling to stay afloat financially, has laid off 11 workers and decided to dismiss school a week early.

“We are still fighting the fight,” President Roy Berwick said of the school’s economic situation. “The intent is to get into the summer and operate the school and to be here in the fall.”

Money problems aren’t new for the 158-year-old school in northwestern Guilford County.

But this year, the academy has been plagued by a 12 percent drop in enrollment, a significant decline in giving and the ongoing burden of $4.3 million debt on an academic building opened in 2001.

To help keep the school open, some 50 members of the faculty and staff agreed last month to relinquish approximately five weeks of salary.

Most of the 11 hourly workers laid off earlier this week were among those who agreed in April to give up their pay.

“They couldn’t take care of their families and I couldn’t pay them,” Berwick said. “So a layoff was the right thing to do.”

Berwick said the laid-off workers qualify for unemployment benefits and no longer have to hold down a nonpaying job while looking for work.

People laid off include maintenance, custodial and resident life workers.

“We’re sharing those duties among ourselves,” Berwick said. “We’re managing it internally.”

He would not elaborate.

Berwick also said six others left the school soon after the vote to relinquish pay. He said other faculty and volunteers are teaching classes affected by those departures.

He said he could not provide the school’s current number of faculty and staff. In early April, the total stood at less than 60.

In addition to the layoffs, the academy has opted to end the school year on May 23, a week early.

“It saves a little (money),” Berwick, said of the new date. "Undergraduate exams were pushed up a week, and we cut that last week out.”

To help the school stay open, students, parents and alumni also have pitched in.

“Everybody is doing everything they can,” said Terrill Sandiford, director of development and alumni affairs. “There are a lot of different things going on. ... What we need are some significant financial gifts.”

This year’s 32-member senior class decided to give the school $4,600 rather than using the money to buy a gift.

“This is a first,” Berwick said. “This is a pretty selfless act on their part.”

In addition, a group of alumni contributed nearly $4,000 through a fundraiser on Facebook, a social networking site.

Alumni say they don’t want to see the school close.

“I have a strong hope that somebody up there likes that little school,” said Sam Chip Cook, a 1994 graduate who lectures at UNCG and N.C. A&T. “It’s going to make it. I’m optimistic for some reason.”

Contact Don Patterson at 373-7027 or don.patterson@news-record.com