Under mounting pressure from Island towns to deliver a budget with no increase over last year, the regional high school district committee hosted a crowd of concerned parents pushing for the reinstatement of an in-school driver’s education program at their meeting Monday night.

The meeting was tinged with emotion. Tom Furino introduced himself, his wife Barbara and several others as parents who had lost a child in a car accident. He argued that each of the accidents could have been prevented with proper driving instruction. Mr. Furino spoke as a representative of MV Drive for Life, an organization he founded that is dedicated to bringing driver’s education to all teens.

“Car crashes are the number one cause of death for teenagers,” said Mr. Furino. “Of all the classes that students take, driver’s education is the only one designed to keep them alive.”

But this is another budget cutting year, and the driver’s education program, which was once offered during school hours and attended by over 200 students, has been eliminated from the school curriculum. Private instruction is available for a fee. Mr. Furino said it is not enough. “We had every single child taking driver’s ed. We didn’t miss one,” he said. Mike Delis, a retired Edgartown police officer who currently teaches driver’s education, agreed. “The kids did not have to pay for the class. It’s the one thing you can teach these kids that 90 per cent of the kids in this school will use every day for the rest of their lives,” he said

MV Drive for Life provided the high school with equipment used to simulate driving situations and teach students how to react in dangerous driving conditions two years ago, but the expensive machines are not currently being used. Mr. Delis said no one has the time or manpower to supervise the use.

Following the meeting, Mr. Furino said reinstating the program would cost about $42,000 for a teacher’s salary. He said he and other MV Drive for Life members would volunteer their own time to assist students with the simulation equipment. The organization is also pushing for passage of David’s Law, a state bill that would place a five per cent surcharge on traffic violations; the money would be used to fund driver’s education programs throughout the state.

But on Monday night the school committee said it has very little room to move. “We’re in the process of creating a budget right now,” said chairman Susan Mercier. “We hear what you’re saying. We don’t have to tell you how hard it is right now.”

Requests for extra funding are all around. On Monday night Tom Pierce, whose daughter plays on the girl’s field hockey team, asked the committee to consider paying for the team to fly to Nantucket for their Friday afternoon state finals game. The current plan is to travel to the other island by bus and ferry via Hyannis, which amounts to some 10 hours in total travel time. The team will not arrive back on the Vineyard until very late Friday night, and some of the players are scheduled to take SAT exams on Saturday morning.

“What we will do is at least investigate and find out what the real costs are,” said Vineyard schools superintendent Dr. James. H. Weiss. But he said it is unlikely that the committee will be able to justify the expense of flying.

At a budget subcommittee meeting preceding the school committee meeting, high school principal Steve Nixon introduced a new draft budget and discussed the pressures coming at both the state and local levels. Revenue and reimbursements are expected to drop by roughly $500,000, due to cuts in funding to areas like special education programming and transportation.

“We don’t have the final numbers for the latest round of cuts from the state,” said school finance manager Mark Friedman. “But we expect it won’t be too far off [the estimate].”

Yesterday the news surfaced that expected revenue from chapter 71 regional transportation aid is down an additional $25,000, for a total decrease of $125,000 from the amount budgeted for fiscal year 2010.

Meanwhile, town finance committees are putting pressure on the school to keep spending level with last year. Mr. Weiss read into the record a letter from the West Tisbury finance committee. “We are very concerned about the pressures the taxpayers are feeling . . . It is time for the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School to be fiscally responsible and show the people that you are listening . . . We believe that the budget can be reduced without jeopardizing the student education,” the letter said.

Mr. Nixon said the current draft $16.4 million operating budget is the best the school can accomplish without affecting instruction. “We were asked by some towns to maintain a zero per cent increase. I feel we have done that,” he said. “We actually went below zero,” he added. But while the operating budget may be slightly down, under the current draft budget assessments to the towns will go up, from $12.5 million to $12.9 million, an increase of four per cent. The reason is a 13 per cent drop in reimbursements, which are projected to go from nearly $4 million to $3.4 million.

“Basically anything beyond this at this point, in my opinion . . . would have some form of effect on the education process,” Mr. Nixon said.

The high school committee will vote on the budget on Dec. 7.