Norwich — During a public hearing Wednesday, parents and educators expressed unanimous opposition to a proposed budget-cutting plan to restructure six city elementary schools by grade level, with speakers criticizing everything from anticipated longer bus rides, larger classes and loss of 11 classroom teachers to the relatively small amount of money to be saved.

The preliminary public school budget totals $82.2 million — a $6 million, 8 percent increase over this year's $76.1 million total. The proposal to restructure six of the city's seven elementary schools to save $800,000 already has been incorporated in the preliminary budget.

The plan calls for pairing the Wequonnoc and Veterans' Memorial schools, with kindergarten through second-grade students attending Veterans, and third- through fifth-grade students going to Wequonnoc. The Thomas Mahan and Uncas schools would be paired, with younger grades at Mahan and older students at Uncas. And the Samuel Huntington and John B. Stanton schools would be similarly paired, with younger students attending Stanton and older students attending Huntington.

Parents told the school board Wednesday that the restructuring makes no sense academically, financially or psychologically for the students. Parent Troy Castineiro said his son came home from Huntington crying the day he learned about the possible change, because his younger sister might not be attending the same school with him next year.

Parent Crystal Janelle detailed a personal impact that the restructuring would have on her family. She said her three children would end up going to three different schools, with three different bus schedules.

"I will not be able to keep my job," she said of the anticipated spread-out schedules.

Parents and educators and one clinical social worker said constant mobility to different schools would have a long-term detrimental effect on the students, even more so for special education students. And like other Norwich school changes made for budgetary reasons, they also don't expect the proposed structure to last very long.

Three years ago, the district converted its middle schools, with all sixth-graders attending Teachers' Memorial and all seventh- and eighth-graders attending Kelly Middle School. But next year, the two schools will return to sixth-through-eighth-grade formats with the receipt of federal magnet school grant money.

Several years earlier, the district closed three elementary schools — eliminating the Buckingham and Greeneville elementary schools and converting the Bishop School to a preschool center — but the savings from that move seem to have evaporated.

Last year, the previous Board of Education endorsed a plan to renovate and expand four existing elementary schools and close three others. That plan called for considering restructuring schools by grade level. But the City Council rejected the plan and did not send it to referendum.

Mayor Peter Nystrom now has pledged to establish a new school renovation committee to study city schools for consolidation and restructuring.

Teacher Gabe Lipman asked why the school board would even consider restructuring now on the eve of a new more comprehensive study. She also questioned why the board would cause such "upheaval" to save just $800,000.

Joshua Glenn told the board how he would bicycle to his neighborhood school and how the elementary schools forge close-knit bonds among teachers and families. The new pairings and splitting the elementary grades would destroy that, he said.

"There's no community in this plan," Glenn said, "and that's what bothers me the most."

Although the board announced at the start of the hearing it would not be engaging in a question-and-answer session with speakers, several speakers posed questions about possible alternative ways to save money, including an early retirement plan, cutting positions other than classroom teachers and cutting supplies. They also asked why the city's seventh elementary school, the John Moriarty Environmental Sciences Magnet School, remained untouched.

School board Chairwoman Yvette Jacaruso said after the hearing that there was no other school to pair with Moriarty. Wequonnoc School also has a magnet theme of arts and technology, which will be carried over to the Veterans' Memorial School with that pairing, school officials said.

The Board of Education Budget Expenditure Committee will meet at 5:30 p.m. on Feb. 27 and March 6 at Kelly Middle School to discuss the budget, and the board is expected to vote on a proposed budget at its 5:30 p.m. meeting March 13 at Kelly. All meetings are open to the public. The budget committee meetings will not have public comment time, Jacaruso said, but the committee will address the questions asked during the hearing.

"We have your children in our schools, and we want to do the best that we can," Jacaruso said. "... We'll do our best."

But "we have to work within our budget," she said.

c.bessette@theday.com