Sacramento City Unified School District trustees traded jabs with each other as parents and teachers made emotional pleas during Thursday night's school board meeting to discuss school closures.

Board members voted 6-1 to close Freeport Elementary School after this school year for a savings of $442,000. Board President Diana Rodriguez opposed the closure.

The board voted 5-2 not to close C.P. Huntington. Jeff Cuneo and Ellyne Bell voted to close Huntington.

The board later decided to delay a decision on closing A.M. Winn Elementary until March 1.

The decision on Winn came late into the night after an hour of discussions and infighting among board members.

"This isn’t how we operate in Rancho Cordova," said Rancho Cordova’s vice mayor Linda Budge, who attended the meeting, along with many City Council members, in support of A.M. Winn. "Our relationships are based on civility and respect."

Rodriguez called two breaks before to the Winn vote when emotions began to boil over. Rodriguez sharply criticized district staff for not doing their "due diligence" when telling trustees the district supported the closure of Winn. Halfway through discussions, District Superintendent Jonathan Raymond told the board that was no longer the case.

Raymond said that recommendation was made in December, before the district eliminated bus transportation.

"There is something very wrong happening on this board tonight," Bell said. "I don't know what deals have been cut. I’m very uncomfortable with this."

"We find ourselves again bickering as adults," said trustee Patrick Kennedy. "We are embarrassing ourselves in front of our community."

The closures returned to the board agenda after being discussed in December. The school board abruptly stopped conversations about those school closures and others amid community resistance.

With less than a week's notice, trustees brought back the closure issue, this time placing Freeport, A.M. Winn and C.P. Huntington on the chopping block.

The district estimated a savings of $832,000 by closing all three, with Freeport accounting for the biggest portion.

Freeport serves 351 students on a site that can accommodate 834 students. Nearly every student at the school is classified as low-income. Many board members said they supported Freeport's closure because they did not see safety issues with students walking to nearby John Still Elementary.

The district will offer open enrollment for students at Freeport who do not wish to attend John Still. Students at Freeport will be given first priority in the district's open-enrollment process.

Rodriguez, in voting against closing Freeport, said the community served by the school needed the services provided at the campus.

Rodriguez said the Freeport community is disenfranchised. When she asked any parents and students from the school to stand, no one did.

"Let's not make any mistake about it," Rodriguez said. "We are affecting the lives of children who can't speak for themselves."

Raymond supported the closure of Freeport, which he cited as the district's lowest-performing elementary school. Raymond was critical of the board for not closing schools in December, saying the under-enrolled district needs to identify cost-cutting measures early so that families know what to expect.

District trustees have given preliminary approval to $28 million in budget cuts for the 2012-2013 school year. Those cuts include cutting sports and extracurricular activities, and eliminating the equivalent of nearly 700 full-time teachers, counselors, assistant principals, librarians, custodians, plant managers and bus drivers.

Before the school board meeting, the Sacramento City Teachers Association held a protest to call attention to what the union sees as financial mismanagement through the district's use of pricey outside consultants. SCTA leaders encouraged trustees to reconsider school closures instead of balancing the district's budget by gutting programs and asking teachers to make pay and benefit concessions.

Many board members cited lessons learned from the district's previous round of school closures in 2009, three months before hiring Raymond.

After closing four campuses, the district delayed conversations about additional closures in 2010, instead saying there needed to be clear criteria and data to determine which schools would be closed or consolidated.

A facilities review committee took the criteria that were established and submitted a report with suggestions for closures and consolidations. Among those in the report were the three elementary schools that board members voted on during Thursday's board meeting.

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