BEVERLY — Some parents said they left Tuesday night's School Committee meeting feeling sick.

"I felt like I was punched in the stomach," said Deb Kumar, whose daughter just had an excellent year in kindergarten at McKeown Elementary School.

"If the override doesn't pass, I don't know how I'm going to break it to a 6-year-old that she can't go to the school she's loved for 10 months," Kumar said.

When she finally does find out which school she'll be going to, Kumar has no idea if her daughter will know anyone in her class.

"I feel cheated by the School Committee," she said.

Committee members voted to approve Mayor Bill Scanlon's plan to close McKeown and keep Cove Elementary School open.

Superintendent James Hayes is working on a redistricting of the five remaining elementary schools if Scanlon's plan is implemented in September.

Many parents are pushing even harder for an override so that doesn't happen.

"Personally, I think the override vote is more important than ever," said McKeown parent and PTO President Julie DeSilva.

Residents vote June 3 on a $2.5 million Proposition 21/2 override, which would raise property taxes by about $185 a year for a home assessed at $450,000. If the override passes, the school system would stay the same in September and administrators would have a year to work out the details of an elementary school consolidation plan.

Parents had encouraged the School Committee to reject both Scanlon's plan and Superintendent James Hayes' plan to close both Cove and McKeown to close a $2.67 million gap between spending and revenue in next year's budget.

"Neither was addressing the fact that class sizes are growing larger and larger," said Kathy Whitehair of the Briscoe Middle School PTO. "The largest casualty is the children of Beverly."

Some parents were also concerned about the last-minute nature of Scanlon's plan and unanswered questions about what it will mean.

"In the end of the night, they basically voted on a plan without much detail or basis in the facts on the ground," said Hannah parent Julie Brown-Garthwaite. "This plan leaves a several-hundred-thousand-dollar gap that will have to come from somewhere. They even disagreed on how many hundreds of thousands — $200,000 or $400,000."

"Our only hope is an override," Whitehair said.