For example, the committee will consider eliminating a guidance conselor in the pilot school a; Can. bridge Rindge and Latin High School, a program designed to bring 200 students into close contact with 10 teachers and advisers.

Students in this program have the highest SAT scores in the city, said Ray F. Shurcleff, dean of the school, where 75-80 percent of the students go on to college.

The loss of a guidance counselor, however, would "cripple the program's integrity," said Shurtleff, because the counselor's workload could not be redistributed to already overworked instructors.

Cutting the budget may also involve combining grade levels--so-called multigrading--in classes with fewer than 21 students to reduce the number of teachers.

City Councilor Alice Wolf, who served on the school committee for eight years, said she did not object to the concept of multigrading, but that it was not the way to cut the budget.

Wolf said multigrading had the potential to be a good way of teaching, but "if it's imposed on teachers and parents who are opposed to it, then it's a problem."

Officials attributed the budget shortfall to inflation, decreasing state aid, and Proposition 212.

In addition, two large creases--for administrators and teachers--have contributed to the projected deficit.

While Koocher blamed much of the budget problem on this item. Peterkin and school committee members Frances H. Cooper and Rena H. Lieb said the salary raises--18 percent for a small number of administrators and 9.5 percent over two years for teachers--only keep up with inflation and should not have been any lower.