Parents and students from Rohnert Park's Technology High School are battling a proposal to move their classes off the Sonoma State University campus, a move that would produce new revenue for the school district in a year of looming budget cuts.

The university is renovating a main building and might be willing to pay up to $250,000 a year for three years to use the current Technology High classrooms, administrators said.

The classrooms were obtained on a 25-year lease after the Cotati-Rohnert Park Unified School District gave the university $5 million from a 1990 bond issue.

Students and parents told the school board Tuesday that the 170-student Technology High School might disappear if the program is moved from its unique setting on the university campus.

Jonathan Monroe, the school's student body president, said moving would change not only where the school is but "what it is and may result in our demise."

The five-member school board took no action Tuesday but agreed to consider the matter again Feb. 24 unless Sonoma State officials agree to a further delay.

Relinquishing the classrooms in Salazar Hall could ease the need for cuts in the district's $51 million budget, administrators said. The district is considering $2.8 million in cuts for the upcoming fiscal year.

Although board members praised the district staff for bringing forward opportunities to generate revenue, they raised a number of concerns that might doom the Technology High proposal.

Among other things, two board members said they would oppose using any money obtained from a classroom lease for general purposes, saying its use should be restricted to facilities as with other bond money.

"Bond money is bond money, and I think that's crossing the line," Board President Karyn Pulley said of the possibility of using that money for general purposes.

Manus Monroe, Jonathan Monroe's father, said Technology High's parents intend to raise money and vie against Sonoma State University for the classroom space.

"We'll bid $200,000 a year," he said.

Sonoma State spokeswoman Susan Kashack said before the meeting that the university isn't pushing for the high school's removal as officials prepare for the $26 million renovation of Darwin Hall during the next two years.

"We don't want them now to think we want them to leave," Kashack said.

Students reported that 95 of their peers signed petitions stating they would "strongly consider" leaving the program if Technology High is moved off the university campus -- one of only two such arrangements in the entire nation, they said.

The district would lose roughly $5,000 for each student who leaves for other districts.

Alternative locations identified by the district include Rancho Cotate High School and the Richard Crane campus, which was converted from an elementary school to an alternative high school.

If the school is moved, Superintendent Michael Watenpaugh said the district might save another $250,000 a year through possible staff cuts.

Board members welcomed the parents' plan to raise funds and said they shouldn't yet think they had "dodged the bullet," as board member Eric Kirchman put it.