Montgomery County School’s Superintendent Jerry Weast’s “leadership program” for 15 elite students survived a close call this week, but debate over the program revealed a rift on the school board.

A motion put to the board during Tuesday’s difficult approval of a shrunken $2.1 billion budget would have gotten rid of the superintendent’s program — which includes a bimonthly honors seminar, a yearlong internship and a group service project for select students  — and put its coordinator in a full-time position for career and technology education.