Residents of Duquesne will get a chance to give their ideas about how the budget for the Duquesne School District should be formulated at a June 19 public hearing organized by state board of control member Stanley Denton.

Dr. Denton got the idea for the public hearing yesterday, during a bi-monthly parents meeting at the National City bank in Duquesne, as he listened to parents and residents complain about the deep cuts in the $12.9 million preliminary budget introduced last month. It will be held at 7 p.m. in the auditorium of the Duquesne Education Center.

The proposed spending plan calls for the elimination of seven teaching positions, the school psychologist, the librarian and the guidance counselor. It also would eliminate the district's last foreign language teacher and the remainder of the art and music classes and virtually all extra-curricular activities.

But it would retain funds for high school football and basketball, a detail that annoyed some parents at yesterday's meeting and at the May board of control meeting.

Dr. Denton, an assistant professor of education at Point Park University, said he wanted to hold a public hearing at which school and board of control officials would go "line-by-line" through the preliminary budget, explaining it to the residents. Afterward, residents would be free to offer their opinions on how the money should be spent.

"This is not a done deal. Some of you may have better suggestions than what we have now," Dr. Denton said. "I think there's room for improvement in that budget."

He asked each person who attended yesterday's meeting to bring along two other Duquesne residents to the budget hearing in an effort to get a cross-section of the community to attend. He said he also hoped to get word of the meeting out through church and community groups.

While the parents meeting was being held in the bank basement yesterday, an eight-member team of officials from the Pittsburgh Public Schools was visiting the Duquesne Education Center to see whether the city district could help manage the Duquesne school system in the 2006-07 school year.

State Education Secretary Gerald Zahorchak asked Pittsburgh Superintendent Mark Roosevelt to study whether his district can provide services to Duquesne to assist with its academic mission and its operations functions.

In a related matter, Dr. Denton said he had not seen Propel Schools' application to open a charter school for kindergarten to 12th grade in Duquesne in August 2007. Bob Crytzer, manager of external relations for Propel, said the application was submitted to the board of control at the Duquesne Education Center on Monday.

Mr. Crytzer attended yesterday's parent session but did not address the group. The Duquesne charter school would include Propel's first high school.

Duquesne resident Marcel Smith, who has four children attending Propel's elementary school in Homestead, said he would like to see Propel open a charter school in Duquesne. The Homestead Propel has 113 students from Duquesne.

But Jesse Estochin, a transition assistant with Duquesne schools, said Propel had sent six emotional support students back to the Duquesne district.

"What if there was no home district for them to come back to?" she asked.

Contacted after the meeting, Carol Wooten, Propel's chief academic officer, said the school does not send students back to their home districts, but that some families may have chosen to return to Duquesne.

Dr. Denton said he is not a proponent or an opponent of charter schools. But he said he sees his primary job as a member of the board of control "to help save the Duquesne School District."

He also said his initial reaction was to "respond protectively to anything that might be harmful" to Duquesne's K-12 program.

He said he believes the quality of education and the number of course offerings can be improved by Duquesne working along with other school districts such as Pittsburgh or perhaps neighboring McKeesport.

He said, through technology, children in schools in the United States can be connected to classrooms in Asia and Japan.

"If we can link up with children around the world," he said, "why can't we link up with other schools in Allegheny County?"