March 25 (Bloomberg) -- Budget cuts at Boston Latin School, which educated Samuel Adams, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Sumner Redstone, may mean fewer of the advanced classes that help send students to Harvard University.

More students are admitted to Harvard from Boston Latin than from any other secondary school. An average of 23 Boston Latin graduates enrolled in Harvard’s past four classes, said Robert Mitchell, spokesman for Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences in Cambridge, Massachusetts. A narrowed curriculum will make it harder to gain entry there or to other elite colleges, said William Poff-Webster, 17, a junior.

Boston Latin, the oldest public school in the U.S., faces a 5.1 percent cut in its budget for the year starting July 1, to $11.1 million. That’s double the 2.5 percent average that the superintendent, Carol Johnson, is proposing across Boston Public Schools. The School Committee, the system’s governing body, is to vote on her $812 million budget today.

“This is America’s high school,” said Karina Meiri, 57, whose daughter is a junior at Boston Latin. “We’re not asking for more money, we’re asking for level funding.”

Boston Latin educated luminaries of the American Revolution including Benjamin Franklin, John Hancock, Robert Treat Paine and William Hooper. Philosopher George Santayana, composer Leonard Bernstein and businessman Joseph Kennedy, father of President John F. Kennedy, also studied there.

The pared budget means the 24 advanced placement courses in subjects such as physics, calculus, Chinese and economics can be offered only if they draw full enrollment of 31 students, said Lynne Mooney Teta, the headmaster.

No Music, Theater

The school also expects to eliminate music and theater classes, most health and physical education classes, and 6 1/2 of 113 teaching positions, she said. The board’s recommendation goes to the mayor for inclusion in the city budget.

“Every year, we invite 420 of the brightest students to cross our threshold from every neighborhood and socioeconomic strata in Boston,” Mooney Teta said. “We tell them they will be the next generation of leaders. It’s going to be a challenge to meet our mission.”

Redstone, chairman of Viacom Inc. and a Harvard graduate, praised Boston Latin in his 2001 autobiography, “A Passion To Win.”

“Boston Latin was a public school run like a private academy,” he wrote. “From seventh through twelfth grade, I was surrounded by Boston’s best students, many from the city’s most disadvantaged neighborhoods. We had been chosen not because we were wealthy or connected but because we were smart.”

Harvard’s admissions office will look at how students make use of the resources available to them, Mitchell said.

‘Sumus Primi’

Boston Latin’s motto, “sumus primi,” or “we are the first,” is a play on both its academic reputation and its founding in 1635, a year before Harvard. The school, near Fenway Park, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, has more than 2,400 students in grades 7 through 12. They are admitted by an exam system, and graduation requires four years of Latin and four years of a modern foreign language.

Boston Public Schools faces a $107 million budget gap next year because of rising costs for utilities, food, salaries and transportation and a drop in state funds, Johnson said last month. The system is seeking to preserve money for special-needs students and non-native English speakers, who aren’t in large numbers at Boston Latin, said John McDonough, the district’s chief financial officer.

“Content considered less essential gets cut” during tough economic times, said Scott Seider, 32, an assistant professor of curriculum and teaching at Boston University. “Those cuts can really be devastating for schools.”

Disincentive to Move

Some families moved into the city just so their children would be eligible to seek admission to the school.

“Latin was the only thing that mattered to us,” said Lin Sun, 49, whose younger son is in eighth grade and older son graduated from Boston Latin and Harvard. “This school is such a piece of history and educated so many excellent people and we need to continue to do that.”

Reducing the budget will tarnish the school’s reputation in the long run, he said.

“With these kinds of budget cuts, I wouldn’t move to Boston today,” said Lucy Lu, 48, whose younger daughter is in seventh grade and older daughter graduated from Boston Latin and is a Harvard junior. “My kids can’t afford to have less balanced education.”

Boston Latin students are banding together to fight the moves. Benjamin Hill, 16, a junior, created a Facebook page called Save our BLS Education that has 1,800 members.

Student Protests

Poff-Webster helped create Boston Public Schools Student Alliance for the Future of Education, which has 527 members on Facebook. The group drew 80 students to a protest at Mayor Thomas Menino’s State of the City speech in January, and more than 200 students to a School Committee meeting in February, he said.

“Our education is being shortchanged,” said Poff-Webster, who has been at Boston Latin since seventh grade and is interested in attending Harvard. “Education should be the highest priority right now because we have a lot to learn from the mistakes of the past.”

The school board backed down from the 12 percent reduction originally planned for Boston Latin’s budget, which would have meant the loss of 14 teaching positions. Some money was restored last week after the city received additional federal funds, Mooney Teta said. Classes still will be bigger than their optimal size, she said.

“A rising tide lifts all boats and in a falling tide they drop,” said Hill’s mother, Mary Driscoll. “Latin will always be one of the best schools in the nation.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Edmond Lococo in Boston at elococo@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: March 25, 2009 00:00 EDT