The Mount de Chantal Visitation Academy in Wheeling has been pulled back from the brink of ruin several times, by various hands, since eight nuns founded it in 1848.

William "Boss" Tweed, the infamously corrupt New York political boss, and his friends helped pay its crushing debts in the 1800s. A gift from a wealthy Colombian family helped it construct needed buildings in the 1900s. And in recent years, a generous bequest from the daughter of an alumna and a heroic fund-raising effort have paid for lights and heat and salaries.

But this time, say the sisters of the independent Roman Catholic school, an eroding student population and the academy's insatiable costs -- including the school's beautiful but drafty old buildings -- appear finally to have doomed the only all-girls secondary school in West Virginia.

"For the past three years, we've been trying really hard to keep open, but at this point in time we just don't see how we can continue," said Sister Joanne Gonter, superior of the Sisters of the Visitation in Wheeling. She graduated from the Mount in 1952 and has taught philosophy, logic and religion there ever since.

The school's remaining eight sisters voted unanimously Jan. 10 to close the academy, which is co-educational from preschool through grade 4 and girls-only from grades 5 through 12, on May 31, which is Visitation Day.

Many parents of the school's 134 students, as well as several former students, met at the school last Wednesday to talk about trying to save their alma mater, which has posted an annual shortfall of $600,000 or more in recent years. Winter heating costs alone have amounted to more than $11,000 a month despite relatively warm weather.

Susan Board, who graduated in 1972 and later sent her three daughters to the Mount, said she had heard the school was having financial problems, but was shocked to hear it will close.

"I'm certainly hoping something can be done about it," said Mrs. Board, who is the manager of the Moundsville/Marshall County Airport. "If, in fact, the school does close, it will be a sad day for education, and for single-sex education."

Founded as an all-girls school for the Catholic, Protestant and Jewish families of Wheeling, the academy moved to its present site in 1865. It grew and maintained steady enrollment -- graduating classes often had 40 or more girls and several alumnae earned spots in Wheeling's Hall of Fame -- until the 1980s. Then, just as mills were closing and many families were struggling to pay for food and housing, much less private school tuition, a nearby boys' school, The Linsly School, went co-ed through grade 12.

For families with a boy at Linsly and a girl at the Mount, it became much easier to send both children to Linsly, said Sister Gonter.

Since 1990, she said, the Mount's graduating classes have averaged fewer than 12 students even though the school welcomes children of all backgrounds and beliefs. This year's group of 134 students from West Virginia, eastern Ohio and southwestern Pennsylvania represents a 20 percent decline from last year's student body.

At the same time, the number of sisters, who teach for free, has dwindled, and the number of outside teachers, who must be paid, has risen as a result, placing a growing burden on the academy's finances. In addition, nearly half the school's students receive some form of financial assistance to cover tuition, which costs $7,950 for secondary school students.

Today, Sister Gonter is the only member of her order who continues to teach at the school; one other sister works at the school as a staff member, and the others have retired. All of them will continue living in a private residence on the academy's campus, which their order owns, after the school closes.

The sisters are still discussing what to do with the academy's buildings, including the main building constructed in 1865 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

"That's going to have to get a lot of study," she said. "These are wonderful old buildings, but they're hard to keep up and they're definitely not energy efficient."

Despite several attempts to right the school's finances, none of the rescue efforts has worked for long. In the 1990s, the school resuscitated its basketball team and recruited talented players as a way to draw attention and enrollment to the school. One alumna went on to play professional basketball in Minneapolis, but the team itself ultimately fell by the wayside as injuries took their toll.

"It may sort of exist, but I don't know that they're playing anybody," Sister Gonter said of the team.

A massive fund-raising effort, Faith in Our Future, paid for the school's annual deficit for two school years. A bequest that came through last fall will pay the school's bills through May. Various fund-raisers -- a gala auction last fall, a benefit next month for the county animal shelter -- and fees from renting the grounds for weddings and other events add money here and there.

But still, the school's ends don't meet. And the school's alumnae already contribute generously and can't be asked to fill the shortfall, according to Sister Gonter. As a result, she said, the school's single-sex educational opportunities -- and even more important to the people who love it, its spiritual values of gentleness and humility -- are about to fall by the wayside.

And that would be tragic, said Mrs. Board.

Her middle daughter, Glynis, first refused to attend an all-girls secondary school, then finally agreed to give ninth grade at the Mount one month before transferring to a co-ed school. By the end of the month, Glynis, then 13, told her mother "she had no idea what a relief it would be to be in a class without boys," where she didn't have to compete with louder, bigger boys for the teachers' attention and with other girls for the boys' attention, Mrs. Board said.

Sending her daughters -- two of whom attended last week's meeting with her and one of whom plans to write a letter to Pope Benedict XVI to ask for help for her alma mater -- to the Mount also showed them a different kind of female role model in the nuns.

"They were able to see the nuns in roles where they could see and judge their souls," said Mrs. Board of her daughters, now graduated and in their 20s. "Which I think is such an advantage to any young woman in today's world."