Rochester City School District Superintendent Jean-Claude Brizard answered criticism about his budget plans at Thursday night’s school board meeting, but it was people opposed to those plans who stole the stage.

Critics of the superintendent’s proposed budget cuts were out in full force, even bringing a stack of petitions demanding that 250 teacher and staff positions not be eliminated. However city school students caught the most attention.

They played drums, one girl played the flute, and more than a dozen students asked the board not to cut teaching positions, especially in the arts. Many in the audience held signs or wore music notes pinned to their clothing.

“If you take away music you are taking away a big piece of our learning and knowledge,” said Justus Lucas, a student at School 12.

“With sports you may only be able to do it for five years and then you have to go on and do something else,” said Louis McCray, a sixth grader at School 12. “But music is an extension that you can do for your whole life.”

“A teacher is so much more than just what their job description entails,” said Megan Gilfoy, a sophomore at the School of the Arts. “The elimination of music, art and physical education positions will hit much harder than an alternative, such as using our stimulus money.”

“As a district student I am offended by this budget,” said Crescenzo Scipione, a senior at the School of the Arts. “I suggest that instead of cutting teachers, the superintendent think about cutting his own expenses first.”

Superintendent Brizard responded to some of the criticisms during his address to the board. He pointed out that federal stimulus money is only supposed to be used as a supplement and not in place of budget items since the money will only be around for two years. He also says he’s not yet done cutting central office staff.

On the subject of teacher cuts, he says Rochester already has some of the best student-teacher ratios in the country.

“The bottom line is when you have a fiscal crisis you have to begin to take a look at where, you begin to step away a little bit,” said Brizard. “We still want to have great classroom sizes, we still want to have great ratios, but we could not sustain and afford what we were doing.”

The board approved Brizard’s budget proposal earlier this month by a four to three vote. It’s now in the hands of the city council, which will vote on the proposal June 16th.

Another hot topic at Thursday’s school board meeting: a police concerning military recruiting.

Right now the district must have parental permission to share high school students’ personal information with military recruiters. But the board is considering a change which would assume that parents who do not submit a form want their children’s information released.

It’s a change many parents and community members spoke out against.

“It seems like they’re pushing the kids to either jail or the military,” said Ricardo Adams. “Let them stay and build up our community.”

“Legislators who wrote section 9528 of the act, the armed forces recruiter access, knew exactly what they were doing: institutionally discriminating against the least advantaged in our society, students in poor urban and rural school districts,” said Kathy Castania.

District leaders are worried the current policy goes against federal requirements and could cost the district federal money.

Commissioners did not take action Thursday night and will continue the discussion at a future meeting.

One more note from the school board: commissioners voted to appoint Anibal Soler, Jr. the new principal of East High School. Soler is a 32-year-old former student at East High. He was there for grades nine and ten before his family moved out of the district.