MANCHESTER — A crowd of city parents and students, joined by a generous sprinkling of teachers, rallied in support of improved funding for city schools at Veterans Memorial Park on Saturday afternoon.

The rally was sponsored by Citizens for Manchester Schools. One the group's founders, Jim O'Connell, said the budget shortfalls in the school district has created “failing schools which are an embarrassment and a disgrace.”

To the approval of segments of the crowd, O'Connell laid the responsibility for problems in the schools at the feet of elected officials.

“I expect the political leadership from this city to get out from behind the political excuses and fix the problem,” O'Connell said. “We have chosen the political leadership, and in my mind, it has abdicated its responsibility.”

An estimated 300 people attended the rally. The crowd includedan assortment of elected officials and candidates, including Democratic gubernatorial candidate Maggie Hassan, who was not asked to speak.

Several times the chant of “Save our schools” broke out. Speakers hammered state and local government leaders repeatedly for not spending enough on the schools.

But O'Connell denied that the rally was short on solutions to the dilemma posed by diminishing resources and higher costs.

“I have said repeatedly that we have to find new and better ways of delivering education in Manchester,” he said.

State officials were also criticized for what speakers blasted as inadequate state funding of local schools and the “downshifting” of educational costs onto a city such as Manchester which, as an urban school system, tackles a significant number of issues with the diverse population that it educates.

“Manchester is a regional city, a city with all the vibrancy and all the wonderful things that any regional city has,” O'Connell said. “It also has the difficulties and the challenges that vibrancy and diversity brings.”

Ron Kew was a teacher and a principal in city schools for 18 years before leaving as principal of the Gossler Park School last spring to take a principal's position in Brentwood.

“It really wasn't my plan to go anywhere,” he said. “Every year, educators in Manchester are cut, which means education for kids is diminished.”

Kew said Manchester is investing less and expecting more from its educational system and from the people trusted with teaching the city's children.

“Teachers don't go into teaching because they're going to make lots of money,” Kew said. “It has something to do with what they want to do with their life, it has something to do with their heart.”

The crowd also heard a student from Manchester High School Central talk of the difficulties the student body encountered at the start of the school year.

Sarai Roby, a junior at Central, spoke of the crowded conditions at the school when in opened in late August, but reserved most of her remarks for detailing how course offerings were affected.

Roby focused on science in particular, noting that freshmen who had expected to take physical science were diverted into biology, traditionally offered to sophomores.

“I was supposed to take an ecology class, but they canceled it and put me in anatomy because that's all they had open,” she said. “I need the science credits.”

Some of the parents in the audience said they came because they want public officials to know the depth of their concern about the state of education in Manchester, with the crowding in the classroom weighing most heavily on their evaluation of the schools.

“When my daughter was in kindergarten, I was introduced to the Manchester public schools; she goes to an incredible school” said Erin Kerwin, the mother of a first-grader.

But the prospect of facing crowded conditions in upper grades has Kerwin considering leaving the city.

“If they don't do something, we're leaving,” she said.

Mayor Ted Gatsas said early Saturday that attention needs to be focused on resolving the issues, which are fairly well-known and publicized. An ongoing issue has been the teacher union's refusal to pick up more of the cost for health care.

“I want to hear solutions,” Gatsas said.

The mayor has called a special meeting of the Board of School Committee for Monday night to discuss the budget situation in the schools. The meeting is at 7 p.m. in the aldermanic chamber at Manchester City Hall.

Through it all, school Superintendent Thomas Brennan stood at the rear of the crowd, listening to a parade of speakers blast school funding levels while chatting with some of those in attendance who approached him about one issue or another.

Brennan remained long after the public rally concluded, talking with parents and teachers.

“It's about the schools, so I am here,” the superintendent said.

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Bill Smith may be reached at wsmith@unionleader.com.