For the first hour of Tuesday night's Rochester school board meeting, board clerk Marisol Ramos-Lopez read a selection of comments from nearly 100 residents and employees, all of them imploring the board to restore parts of the $62 million in cuts proposed by Superintendent Terry Dade for the 2020-21 budget.

Cuts to social workers, to special education, to the arts, to the Rochester International Academy, they argued, would decimate the Rochester City School District and make a lie of its stated commitment to equity.

When the public comments were done, the board moved on to the main business of the evening: considering an additional $27 million in cuts.

School 20 on Oakman Street and School 43 on Lyell Avenue would close, and School 3 in Corn Hill would be shut down for two years for renovation before reopening in 2022-23 as a middle school.

East High School would lose an additional $6 million from its proposed $20.9 million budget.

The district will set aside $5 million less for cash capital, pending approval from City Council, and spend $5.5 million less in charter tuition due to a state rate adjustment.

Another $600,000 would come out of central office expenses, including a pay freeze for the top-level administrators.

The final $922.4 million budget is $9 million less than the budget the board first adopted for 2019-20, despite steadily increasing personnel costs and student need. It restores $8 million to the currently empty fund balance.

That would make five schools that won't reopen in the fall, in addition to some smaller programs. Nearly 350 positions, or about 9% of the district's 2019-20 employees, would be eliminated.

"These budget cuts are going to continue to tear apart our district and, more importantly, our school communities," J'Anna Worth, a 12th grader at World of Inquiry, wrote.

East High School Superintendent Shaun Nelms, meanwhile, said the $6 million cut "is ending the relationship with the EPO and the University of Rochester. Whether it’s intentional or not, that’s what it signifies."

The cuts come in response to an unexpected double-whammy of a crisis that has staggered the district. First, the news last August that tens of millions of dollars had been spent without anyone noticing; second, the coronavirus pandemic, which slashed into an already fraying state budget.

"This has been a nightmare of a budget year. All I’ve been able to talk about is reductions," Dade said. "I just don’t have a magic pot of money to say, let’s take $2 million from fund balance to fund X, Y or Z."

The board still has not formally weighed in on Dade's proposed cuts. Several board members immediately questioned his proposed deep reductions to special education and social workers in particular.

The special education cuts drew a letter of condemnation from the community advisory committee that helped shape reform efforts in special education two years ago.

Eight members of the committee, including chairwoman and former board member Melanie Funchess, signed a letter saying the cuts would inevitably "lead back to non-compliance with the district's legal obligations (and) violate the civil rights of students with disabilities."

Dade also responded to board feedback by cutting five of the 12 school resource officers provided by the Rochester Police Department and replacing them with non-law enforcement school security officers.

One new expense that was spared is the creation of two new early education centers in the soon-to-be-closed School 44 and School 57 buildings. The district has declined to provide a full cost analysis of those new programs, but it is certain to be an increase over the comparable 2019-20 figures.

Contact staff writer Justin Murphy at jmurphy7@gannett.com or at 585-258-9886. This coverage is only possible with support from our readers. Sign up today for a digital subscription.