Superintendent of Schools BOBBIE J. D’ALESSANDRO urges the school committee to ratify her consolidation plan last night. The committee rejected her proposal unanimously and decided to start again from scratch.

Responding to six months of tears, protests and threats from parents and teachers, the Cambridge School Committee last night saved two elementary schools from shutting down and decided to start from scratch on a new plan for school closures.

Committee members rejected a measure that would have closed the Fitzgerald and Harrington Schools next year but endorsed the idea of closing two elementary programs in 2004.

They also promised to seek broad parental input in choosing which two schools will ultimately be marked for closure and agreed to meet in the coming weeks to decide on how that process will work. They pledged to vote on a final consolidation plan in June.

Superintendent of Schools Bobbie J. D’Alessandro, whose contract will lapse after this summer, had urged the committee last night to ratify her recommendation, which would address the district’s growing problem of half-used classrooms.

“The problem is that we don’t have enough students to fill our seats,” she said. “The vote must be tonight.”

Committee member Alice L. Turkel proposed a compromise measure to close just the Harrington School, saying inaction on the merger question would threaten the district’s credibility.

“It’s a way to do further damage to the school system,” she said. “What I see happening is that Cambridge will descend even further into the turf wars that have surrounded us. I see teachers and parents paralyzed by another year of meetings.”

But after her plan failed, Turkel ultimately joined the 6-1 vote in favor of postponing closures for another year.

Public testimony stretched for three hours at last night’s packed meeting. Parents and teachers blasted the superintendent’s proposal as a stop-gap measure that would threaten low-performing students in neighborhood schools.

The proposal amounted to an “ill-conceived budget-driven band-aid,” said Fitzgerald parent Sylvia Seniper.

Six of Cambridge’s nine city councillors came to testify at the meeting. Though the council mandated this fall that the school committee close or merge schools to save money, most of the councillors criticized the plan and urged the committee to hold off on implementation.

“Give us a process that has a timeline,” said councillor Anthony D. Galluccio. “Let’s reflect back on what has taken place. Step back and make a good decision.”

D’Alessandro had offered the plan as the latest in a series of proposals to merge or close several of the city’s 15 elementary schools in order to close a $2.6 budget deficit.

In addition to closing the Fitz and Harrington, it would have moved the Graham and Parks and King Open Schools into the empty buildings.

Several committee members said they were surprised by the councillors’ criticisms, and D’Alessandro said their objections went against earlier city council mandates.