NASHUA – It’s crunch time for a group of residents hoping to convince city officials to pump another $2 million into next year’s school budget.

In a meeting with The Telegraph’s editorial board Wednesday, members of Nashua Schools Back on Top said they plan on spending the days leading up to a vote on next year’s city budget contacting individual aldermen, urging them to do what they can to ensure the proposed cuts to school services next year don’t happen.

“We will continue to try to sway the Board of Aldermen to reduce the cuts as much as possible,” said Jim Donchess, who served as mayor of Nashua from 1984-91.

Donchess is one of the leaders of the group, which has used its Facebook group and a petition to rally support for their cause. The Facebook group has nearly 400 members and the petition the group presented to the aldermen at a public hearing on the budget had more than 1,000 signatures.

Donchess said the goal is to keep educational services the same next year, which the group figures will require another $2 million, on top of the $93.4 million set aside for schools in the proposed city budget. That already represents a 4.6 percent increase over this year’s budget, but members of the group say the cuts being proposed to make up for other mandated costs will destroy education in the city.

The one cut that has received the most pushback has been the elimination of 15 high school teachers, which will require the district to limit freshmen and sophomores to seven credits, instead of the regular eight. In place of the class time would be mandated study halls of up to 200 students at a time.

Donchess and others at the meeting said they believe reducing credits and requiring study halls would significantly lower the standards at the high schools and hold students back.

“The most ambitious, the most hard-working, they’re the ones who are punished the most,” Donchess said.

The aldermen’s budget review committee has moved the city budget to the full board without any changes to the school department. The full board is expected to take up the city budget at their meeting Tuesday.

There was some discussion at budget review committee meetings that some money could be pulled from the $1.8 million set aside for severance costs to fund the $480,000 needed to restore the high school teachers.

Administrators and union officials are working to get a more accurate picture of how many teachers plan on retiring at the end of the year.

However, if the high school credit reduction goes through, Kim Muise, a parent and member of the Main Dunstable Elementary School PTO, said it is unlikely to be restored in future years. Once it’s cut, it’s gone, she said.

While school board members, teachers and city officials have all weighed in, Muise said it was important parents had their say, too.

“That was a voice that needed to be heard,” she said.

Superintendent Mark Conrad has said that while he doesn’t agree with the proposed cuts at the high schools, he doesn’t think it will mean students will have fewer opportunities. Conrad has said the district has worked to accommodate students who weren’t able to find room for music courses in their schedules.

Mayor Donnalee Lozeau, who kept next year’s school budget at the same level proposed by the Board of Education, has estimated her proposed $240 million budget would increase the tax rate by 3 percent. That could go up to 4 percent if the state follows through on additional cuts to aid that are being considered, Lozeau said. If aldermen added money to her proposed budget, she could veto it.

Even though cuts are being proposed, the School District budget is going up 4.6 percent while most other city departments were asked to stay level funded or work with a small increase.

Donchess said the money being proposed would add 1 percent to next year’s tax rate.

“We believe we’re asking for a very modest increase,” he said.

The Nashua Teachers Union was asked to renegotiate its contract for next year to help lessen the staff cuts, but the union declined. Donchess said his group did not approach the union about reconsidering because it wanted to remain independent from the teachers.

Also being proposed for next year are cuts of seven middle school teachers, the closure of the Phoenix Program for at-risk students, and the elimination of the REACH program for gifted and talented students at the middle schools and high schools. The proposed budget would also implement a “pay to play” requirement for sports and extracurricular activities.

The district has had its share of financial problems over the past year. After the 2009 fiscal year ended in June, school officials found in July that they had overspent their budget by $3.3 million. Conrad, who was hired after the deficit occurred, was forced to keep dozens of positions vacant and cut areas like school supplies and new textbook purchases.

The parents said things were already bad in the schools over the past few years because of cuts and their concern is about that downward trend continuing into next year. One-on-one attention to students had declined, as have school supplies and staffing levels, they said.

“Our goal isn’t all about money, it’s about the quality of education,” said Ann Peters, a parent of two students.

The group said that regardless of whether their effort is successful, they will continue to rally support for education. They said the support from the community has been overwhelming.

“People are thankful that we’re doing this,” said Lisa Law, a parent, active PTO member and school volunteer.

Michael Brindley can be reached at 594-6426 or mbrindley@ nashuatelegraph.com.

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