A mood of glum resignation mixed with solidarity lingered over the Roanoke County School Board meeting Tuesday night, as board members voted to close Bent Mountain Elementary School at the end of the academic year.

Shuttering the nearly century-old school was one element of a $2.4 million package of savings unanimously endorsed by the board, but it is only the first step to close a projected multimillion-dollar deficit.

The school board last year gave Bent Mountain a one-year reprieve to see if economic conditions would improve enough to keep the small school open. Members of the isolated community fought the closure furiously at first, but outcry dwindled as the fiscal outlook worsened. At meetings held earlier this year, attendees spoke out in opposition to the then-proposed closing of Bent Mountain, but on Tuesday the demise of the institution seemed a foregone conclusion.

Instead, supporters of two other elementary schools targeted for possible closure, Clearbrook and Fort Lewis, were out in greater numbers. Clearbrook supporters donned T-shirts stamped "CB."

"It would break my heart ... if it was closed or went by the wayside at all," Clearbrook Civic League President Randy Kingery told the board.

"I know you're concerned about your school closing," said Fuzzy Minnix, who represents the Cave Spring District. "I'm concerned. It's my school, too."

Chris Riha of Roanoke County likened the closing of Bent Mountain to a ripple in a pond, but said shuttering other schools represented a tsunami. School officials have said closing the two additional schools is not likely to happen by the start of the 2010-11 school year.

The approximately 50 students from Bent Mountain will be transferred to Back Creek Elementary School for the start of the next school year. Other cuts included in the $2.4 million package approved Tuesday include combining driver's education and health curriculum, and eliminating four bus routes, an alternative middle school program and school board-funded field trips.

Meanwhile, the Roanoke School Board held a separate meeting Tuesday evening to discuss what school officials project will be between $11.3 million and $15.3 million in reductions next fiscal year. A preliminary budget is due to the city council by March 15, but the school board members have not identified what direction they will take to close the gap. School board Chairman David Carson at the meeting asked Superintendent Rita Bishop to develop a prioritized list to be presented to the board in early March.

Bishop cautioned the board that the effects of last year's deep cuts -- closing two schools, outsourcing transportation, redrawing attendance boundaries and eliminating the positions of 88 full-time employees -- already are being seen in the division's benchmark testing. Benchmark tests are used to predict performance on state Standards of Learning tests. Further cuts to programs, such as remedial summer school, may cause the division's performance on state and federal measures to backslide, Bishop said.

School officials have identified several potential areas of savings:

n Reducing 140 staff positions, including 70 teachers, to reflect Virginia's Standards of Quality minimums, $8 million

n Tightening high school scheduling, $2 million

n Closing CITY School, eliminating elementary Spanish, consolidating athletics, reducing nursing staff and reconfiguring the Noel C. Taylor Learning Academy, $1.5 million

n Eliminating preschool and 61 associated positions, $1 million

Jim Settle, a teacher at James Madison Middle School, addressed the board in support of furloughs.

"Nobody wants to take a pay cut, but if you knew people would keep their jobs and keep the classroom ratio lower, I think it would be worth it," he said.

Settle told the board this was his worst year of teaching, even worse than his rookie year.

"It is because of what we did last year," school board member Jason Bingham said. "We can't do that again. We will implode."

courtney.cutright@roanoke.com 981-3345

neil.harvey@roanoke.com 981-3376