Despite high demand for law enforcement officials and rescue workers in some parts of the country, not to mention an aging Pittsburgh police force, the Pittsburgh Public Schools may scrap the public-safety magnet program at Pittsburgh Peabody High School in East Liberty.

Administrators want the school board to vote July 23 to discontinue the program as early as next school year. The proposal may be raised at the board's agenda-review meeting tomorrow.

The program -- exposing students to the law enforcement, firefighting and emergency medical services fields -- was established in the mid-1980s and at one time enrolled more than 100 students in grades nine through 12.

But only 29 students were enrolled last school year. Forty signed up for 2008-09, not enough to keep the program going, officials said.

Student achievement has not been encouraging.

The district administers a standardized basic-skills test to mark completion of the program.

Three students took the test in 2006-07, and one passed. Five took the test last school year, but none passed.

In some parts of the country, there are "critical recruitment needs in corrections, law enforcement and security," Joe Coffee, executive director of the National Partnership for Careers in Law, Public Safety, Corrections and Security, said in an e-mail.

The RAND Corp. last month held a symposium in Washington, D.C., to help cities address police shortages.

"A lot of what's happening nationally is agencies are struggling to maintain their ranks, let alone grow them," said behavioral scientist Jeremy M. Wilson, director of RAND's Police Recruitment and Retention Clearinghouse and associate director of its Center on Quality Policing.

But as they retool career and technical offerings, Pittsburgh school officials are looking less at market demand in other cities than at Pennsylvania's official list of fast-growing occupations.

Police officer and firefighter aren't on the list.

Emergency medical technician is on the list. That strand of the public-safety magnet may be folded into a new academy of health careers somewhere in the district, said Julia Stewart, the district's executive director of career and technical education.

Projections of job demand aren't foolproof.

"In the next 10 years, 595 of the 896 police officers will have attained 20 years of service with the bureau. How many will avail themselves to a pension opportunity cannot be predicted," Paul J. Donaldson, the city's deputy police chief, said in an e-mail.

In an interview, Mr. Coffee said partnerships with law enforcement agencies are important to a successful public-safety program.

Dr. Stewart said Peabody students went on field trips, but she was unaware of any internship or ride-along program available through a law enforcement or rescue agency.