A feisty crowd of about 250 people squeezed into Turtle Creek borough council chambers last week after a hitherto unknown, six-member organization called for a halt to a multimillion-dollar school construction project.

And, so far, it looks like its calls are being heard.

The Committee to Save Turtle Creek High School consists of Bob Mock, Connie Morenzi, Jill Henkel, Dolly Miller and Norma Beckette, all of Turtle Creek, and Jeanne Flaherty, from Monroeville. Its goal: To stop a Woodland Hills district plan to raze the 88-year-old former Turtle Creek High School for a new school.

The committee planned the meeting, to which school board members were invited as guests.

Currently the building, which was dubbed East Junior High School when it reopened more than 20 years ago, houses about 350 seventh- and eighth-graders

"I absolutely had to step in and do something," said Mr. Mock, group spokesman and organizer and 1968 Turtle Creek High graduate. "The Woodland Hills school board should rethink its plan to demolish the [Turtle Creek] building. [It] is historically significant; it is structurally sound."

On Tuesday, Christopher Baker, the district facilities manager, said Mr. Mock and others who spoke at the Nov. 30 meeting now have the board's ear.

"The meeting ... asked us to re-evaluate the plan," said Mr. Baker, adding that the issues were brought up with architects the next day. "We've had discussions with our architects to go back and re-evaluate our option to renovate."

District officials said both new construction and renovation would cost between $17 million and $20 million.

Until the outcry at the borough building, however, district architects HHSDR, of Pittsburgh, had not worked on a detailed plan for renovation, said Mr. Baker. With new construction in mind, they had not put on paper designs to move walls, expand existing classrooms or enlarge the cafeteria.

Mr. Baker said the 118,000-foot structure, with its basement classrooms, cramped cafe-teria and leaky windows, is too small and disorganized. Pupils thus are forced to scuttle from basement to upper floor and back again to get to classes.

Still, he said, the determination of the crowd, which included alumni from the de-funct high school, could not be ignored. As a result, new plans focusing on specific renovation concepts are in the works, said Mr. Baker. Soon, they will be unfolded for the public.

Last week's town meeting featured a presentation from Thomas Hylton, a Pennsylvania-based, Pulitzer-winning journalist who advocates preserving old structures.

Then, the audience went nose-to-nose with Mr. Baker, school board President Cynthia Lowery and member Linda Cole with questions like "Does anybody know what is wrong with our school that we need to fix it?" They also declared: "It's our school and we want it to stay" and "Take away Turtle Creek High School, and you might as well take a bulldozer and flatten all of Turtle Creek!"

Both Mrs. Lowery and Mrs. Cole have pushed for the project. During the meeting, Mrs. Cole pointed out that banks of windows on the left side of the building permit traffic noise to disrupt study in classrooms.

Members of the crowd became boisterous and ridiculed her statement. They said they had managed to study when they were in high school. They also asked what the board will do with the din from the Mon-Fayette Expressway, destined to be built near the school site.

Others said they were fed up with taxes. "We can't even afford to renovate our houses," one white-haired woman shouted from the back of the room.

The construction issue has been ongoing for two years. It is part of a decade-long capital improvement program that includes the new junior high school, renovations to Dickson Intermediate and Shaffer Primary schools, and modernizing the Wolvarena football stadium and high school soccer field.

On Nov. 21, the school board voted to take on $30.5 million in loans to begin the 10-year plan. The new loan means a tax increase of 1 mill, said Richard Day, district business manager. The current Woodland Hills tax rate is 23.9 mills. Another mill will bring in an additional $1 million a year for the district.

Woodland Hills is already carrying debt service worth $33.25 million, said Mr. Day.