The Penn Hills School District's proposals for deep cuts and a dramatic reorganization of its schools and operations are too much, too soon, and would do nothing to improve education, according to dozens of residents who spoke out Monday night.

For the ninth-graders who would attend Dible Elementary instead of Linton Middle School in the fall, the reorganization would be a huge distraction from learning, said eighth-grader Taylor Ray-Jetter.

"You think the eighth-graders are bad now?" she asked, drawing a laugh from school board members and many members of the audience at Linton, where the board heard public testimony on the plan.

Just try managing them as a class of ninth-graders sharing a school with a bunch of little kids, she said.

"We're more worried about where we're going to be next year than what we can achieve next year," Taylor said, as many of the 300 people inside Linton's auditorium applauded. "It's chaos."

The school board, half composed of new members, is proposing cuts in staffing, schools and services as a way to balance the district's shaky finances. The district has run deficits of $735,000 to $5.3 million over the past three years, and budget estimates predict a $5 million shortfall for the 2008-09 school year.

In recent years, deficits have been managed by rolling expenses into the next budget year and by postponing planned purchases, noted Donald Boyer, a consultant with The Education Management Group, LLC, which studied the district's finances and operations.

That group's findings and recommendations helped form the district's proposal for cuts to balance the budget. The district must submit its final budget to the state Department of Education by June 30.

The board, which originally planned to take a preliminary vote on the proposal tonight, postponed the vote until Tuesday to allow more time to consider public input.

The voting meeting, which will be open to the public, will begin at 7:30 p.m. in the Thomas A. Bond Auditorium at the senior high school.

Many Penn Hills residents are working class or retired, so the district has little room to raise taxes to make up the shortfall. The district already imposes one of the heaviest tax burdens in the state, relative to the wealth of its community, at 23.39 mills.

That means a homeowner with a $100,000 house pays more than $2,300 a year in school taxes.

Instead of raising taxes, the district has proposed closing three of its six elementary schools -- William Penn, Forbes and Shenandoah -- and dropping the high school's vocational classes, including its high-performing auto repair and technology program.

Vocational students could attend the Forbes Road Career and Technical Center in Monroeville, a school operated by the Allegheny Intermediate Unit where 70 Penn Hills students currently are enrolled.

The district also would cut the positions of about 80 custodians, teachers, guidance counselors and nurses; trim the number of buses; overhaul the food service program, which lost $211,000 last year; and eliminate "schools of focus."

In the process, schools would be reconfigured, according to one scenario recommended by Dr. Boyer:

Beginning in the 2008-09 school year, kindergartners through second-graders would attend Washington Elementary and either Forbes or Shenandoah.

Third- and fourth-graders would attend Penn-Hebron Elementary. Fifth-graders would be added to Linton Middle and ninth-graders would move from Linton to Dible for one year, while students in grades 10-12 would remain at the high school.

In 2009-10, ninth-graders would begin attending the senior high school, Forbes and Shenandoah would close, and Dible would become a second school for kindergarten through second grade.

All that moving around would undermine the stability that many children need, especially those with autism and other learning disabilities, according to several parents.

Michele Shimko's son, first-grader Ryan, is autistic but has been doing well in mainstream classes with the help of his teachers and a consistent schedule and environment, she said. Forcing him to hop from school to school over the next few years would undermine that, his mother told school board members.

"How is he going to succeed?" she asked. "He has come so far, and you will be the ones who set him back."

Changes probably have to happen, but they should be made as part of a long-term plan and with more public participation, said Heather Hoolahan, whose four children attend Penn Hills schools.

"Most of the problems the district is facing [are] the result of poor planning," Ms. Hoolahan said, a sentiment echoed by many other members of the audience who commented on the proposal. "Please don't compound that with more poor planning."

Penn Hills graduate James Creamer said that shutting down the high school's auto repair and technology program ultimately could harm the quality of life in Penn Hills by taking away a program that helps many students find a good job after graduation.

Not everyone goes to college, Mr. Creamer said. If it weren't for the auto repair program and its teacher, he said, he wouldn't have graduated from high school.

"You shut that down and you're going to have more kids on the street, doing things they should not be doing," Mr. Creamer told board members.