Keystone Schools officials want every parent to pay extra tuition for each of their children to keep the school afloat for the rest of the year, parents said Monday after a meeting.

Keystone had a private meeting with parents at the school Monday night to notify them of the school’s financial struggles. Media were not invited, and nearly every parent who left would not comment about what was said.

“Some feel betrayed. Some feel like ‘what can we do to help’,” said Kandi Engelhardt, whose son is a kindergartner at the private, Christian-based school.

Kandi and her husband, Scott Engelhardt, were willing to publicly express their frustration over the lack of information provided to parents until now. Kandi said each parent was asked to pay an extra $2,000 in tuition for each child to pump money into the school.

Keystone officials would not confirm the school is facing closure, but an internal e-mail obtained by The Journal Gazette last week stated significant funding needed to come through this week for the school to remain open.

“I’m frustrated,” said Kandi Engelhardt, who attended the first 90 minutes of the more than two-hour meeting. “I’m disappointed for my child. He’s 6 years old and now he has to be uprooted in the middle of the school year. I think we were misled. They should have told us in the beginning this was the problem.”

Engelhardt said Keystone officials passed around ballots and parents were expected to write their names, how many children they had at the school and how much money they were willing to give. Officials will tally it up and let parents know Friday what the plan was, she said.

Keystone needs $450,000 to remain open for the rest of the year and has a $1.8 million shortfall, Engelhardt said parents were told.

“There’s no way they can stay open. They had an overhead and they showed the numbers. It’s not there,” Scott Engelhardt said. “Basically the parents in there right now are just trying to keep it open till the end of the year for the senior class.”

Engelhardt said the meeting at first was staged in a vague and subtle way in which financial figures were thrown out but officials did not specifically state what they needed or how parents could help.

“The meeting was bogus,” Engelhardt said. “It took parents standing up to say, ‘Are you asking us for that?’ ”

Teachers told the crowd of more than 100 people that they received their second December paycheck last week and have not been paid for January, Engelhardt said. The e-mail sent to staff last week stated teachers were to notify administrators whether they were willing to end their employment, work another week or stay on to support a partial continuation of Keystone.

Parents who asked whether they would be reimbursed their tuition, which runs nearly $5,000 per student per year, were told maybe, Engelhardt said. Kandi and Scott Engelhardt said they are withdrawing their son from Keystone and enrolling him in either St. Charles Borromeo or Canterbury.

Keystone was founded in 2003 by Don Willis, a local entrepreneur who became a multimillionaire after selling his software development company. Willis, whose education foundation was financially invested in Keystone, bought the financially failing Fort Wayne Christian School and renamed it, forming Keystone schools at two sites, although one has closed.

Keystone, 1800 Laverne Ave., serves about 180 pre-kindergarten through 12th-grade students and employs 23 teachers, according to a board member and the school’s Web site.

ksoderlund@jg.net