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If the only choice is between spinach or liver, Collier County students and parents would rather starve.

To them, the only acceptable meal is filet mignon — the kind that comes with 32 credits and a block schedule.

That was the message of community members Monday night on the district’s proposal for a high school schedule change. District officials have said the change would solve the district’s problems that were highlighted in the Hinshaw & Culbertson report about the pairing of Advanced Placement classes and would address the availability of resources, which are shrinking due to a state general revenue shortfall.

Currently, students take four 86-minute classes per semester and earn a total of eight credits a year. As a result, the students receive 130.5 hours of instruction per class.

District officials first proposed that students move from the block to a six-period day with an optional seventh period. Classes would be 55 minutes a day and students would receive 165 hours of instruction per class, earning 24 credits to 28 credits, depending on whether the student took six or seven classes.

The change would save the district $3.5 million and cut 67 teaching positions.

Monday evening, district officials brought a new plan to the Collier County School Board. The proposal calls for students to have seven classes per day and 165 hours of instruction per class, earning 28 credits per year.

The change would save the district $5.7 million and cut 84 teaching positions at the high school level.

District officials also said the change would not affect career academies, which could be blocked over two class periods.

Lely High School teacher Karen Dwyer said high school students shouldn’t be burdened with a middle school schedule when they are doing college work.

“Less is not better, and all this cutting is close to criminal,” she said. “If the school system needs money, get it. But don’t steal from the students and the teachers.”

Palmetto Ridge High School junior Destanie Jones, 16, said district officials have said 28 credits is the norm, but Collier County should strive to be better than the norm.

“You aren’t thinking of our future,” she said, arguing for more time daily in classes and the ability to take four more classes before graduation. “Why are you putting money before our education? ... You are not creating a democracy, you are creating an idiocracy.”

Gulf Coast High School freshman Taylor Meeks, 15, said her grades have improved since coming to high school and a block schedule.

“In a 50-minute class, it took 10 or 15 minutes to get the class settled. We never had any time to go over our homework,” she said. “Under block, we go into more depth, I have more one-on-one time. ... I am proof that block scheduling works.”

Both Gulf Coast High School teacher Julie Sprague and Naples High School teacher Martha McKee pointed out that the district tried to move away from block scheduling three years ago with disastrous results.

The School Board voted at the end of the 2004-05 school year to abolish the block schedule, saying it was too expensive. The change in schedule — to three 86-minute classes and a 50-minute class, and two 86-minute classes with a 50-minute class on alternating days — saved the district $4 million and cut 78 teaching positions, but it also reduced the number of credits students took from eight to seven and put a strain on teachers who said the schedule was too exhausting.

Many educators said they were unable to sponsor school-based clubs and activities, which prompted community members to turn to the School Board for a solution.

After months of meetings, a committee of school officials, teachers and parents submitted a 23-page report requesting block schedule be brought back, and the School Board voted to bring it back for the 2006-07 school year at a cost of more than $3 million.

“We surveyed students, teachers and parents about this issue. We spent a year on this before you made a decision (the last time). And now you are going to make a decision in two weeks?” McKee asked.

McKee also argued that the district’s figures for more instruction time would be inadequate when you factor in how many minutes are lost at the beginning and end of class for things like attendance.

Lely reading teacher Diane Krapf said her daughter, Jill, would have had to choose between JROTC and honors classes if she had not graduated on anything other than block schedule. Today, she said, her daughter is enrolled in honors college because she earned 32 credits and took honors classes, and she was able to stay in JROTC.

It wasn’t just the high school schedule on the minds of community members. Several also spoke out against a proposed change to put middle school students on a seven-period day.

“We have not seen a schedule,” said Von Jeffers, president of the Collier County Education Association, which represents 80 percent of the district’s teachers. “How many minutes are they going to have in homeroom? How many minutes will they have in passing? If you move away from a schedule we have now at Oakridge (Middle School), I can tell you that you will lose in-depth learning, you will lose quality, focused learning.”

Board member Richard Calabrese said he thought the schedule vote should be put off, at least until the 2009-10 school year.

“I think all the money we have should go into the classroom. I think if we make cuts, we should make them at the administrative level,” he said.

In addition to the cuts made by changing the high school schedule, the district is making more than $4 million in cuts at the administrative level.

Board member Pat Carroll, who participated in the meeting by phone, said she thinks the School Board should change the schedule to seven classes per day.

“I said I could not support a six because I have been an advocate for career education, and six periods would adversely affect them,” she said.

“But I have talked with people around the state and they have assured me that seven credits is the minimum to get electives in and continue to make AP classes thrive. I am very pleased with this proposal.”

The Collier County School Board will vote on whether to change the schedule at its regular February meeting, which will be held at 3 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 21, in the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Administrative Center, 5775 Osceola Trail.