Pittsburgh Schenley High School students say they want to stay together, and Pittsburgh Public Schools Superintendent Mark Roosevelt says he's willing to grant that wish.

Mr. Roosevelt, who last month proposed closing the Oakland school at the end of the school year and reassigning its 1,100 students to three other buildings, proposed new plans at a special school board meeting last night.

He said students remaining at Schenley at the end of the school year -- that is, the current ninth-, 10th- and 11th-graders -- could move together to the former Reizenstein Middle School building in Shadyside. Those students can stay together until graduation, he said, and receive Schenley diplomas.

The announcement came 24 hours after about 250 people, including dozens of students, rallied outside school district offices. They said they'd like to save the building, if possible, but stay together first and foremost.

Under the new proposal, Schenley would be phased out over three more school years, rather than dismantled at the end of this one.

Meanwhile, Mr. Roosevelt expressed his resolve to move forward with plans for four new schools configured for grades six through 12, with at least two of those schools absorbing students who otherwise would have enrolled at Schenley.

At a tense meeting, school board members voted 6-3 to hire architects and construction managers to begin design work on four new schools, at a cost that could total about $1.8 million.

Board members Mark Brentley Sr., Randall Taylor and Thomas Sumpter voted against the contracts.

Schenley supporters went to court earlier in the day to seek an injunction blocking the vote on architects and construction managers. They said the district was moving too quickly, but a judge denied an injunction.

Mr. Roosevelt last month said the district couldn't afford the $64 million needed to renovate 91-year-old Schenley. He proposed closing the building and school this spring.

He said he wanted to reassign about 550 students in Schenley's international studies/International Baccalaureate magnet to a new IB school for grades six through 12 at the Reizenstein building. He also proposed incorporating Pittsburgh Frick 6-8, an international studies magnet in Oakland, into the IB school.

Mr. Roosevelt had proposed reassigning 175 students in Schenley's robotics technology magnet to Pittsburgh Peabody High School in East Liberty and assigning the rest to a new university-partnership school in the former Milliones Middle School building in the Hill District.

Under the plans Mr. Roosevelt announced last night, Schenley's building still would close at the end of this school year. Current ninth-, 10th- and 11th-graders could continue their studies together at the Reizenstein building, and robotics students would attend academic classes there but travel to Peabody for the magnet program.

Meanwhile, Mr. Roosevelt would begin building the new 6-12 schools.

Pittsburgh Frick would remain open next school year, but add a ninth grade for international studies students who would have entered Schenley as freshmen. In 2009-10, Frick's students would move to the Reizenstein building for what eventually would become the 6-12 IB school.

The university-partnership school would open at Milliones in the fall with a 6-9 configuration, then evolve into a 6-12 configuration by adding one grade annually for three years. The school would open with middle-grade students from Pittsburgh Miller PreK-8 and Pittsburgh Vann PreK-8, plus students who otherwise would have entered Schenley as freshmen next school year because of neighborhood feeder patterns.

In fall 2009, Mr. Roosevelt would open a science and technology school at the Frick building, and merge the middle-grade and high school magnet arts programs, Downtown. The school board voted last night to spend $2.2 million to buy three more floors in the Downtown building that already houses the high school.

Two Schenley supporters, parent Jennifer England of Greenfield and 2006 graduate S.J Antonucci of the Strip District, said Mr. Roosevelt's compromise wasn't enough.

Supporters still hope to find a way to save the building; the school board will vote in February on closing it.