WESTBROOK – Last Thursday night’s meeting at the Westbrook Middle School was ostensibly a public forum on the 2012-2013 budget for the Westbrook School District, but it might as well have been an official public hearing on the proposal to close Prides Corner Elementary School, because that’s all anyone wanted to talk about.

Most of the discussions in the forum, which lasted more than two hours, centered not on whether to close the school, but what the reconfiguration of the city’s educational districts would mean for fifth-graders, who would be thrust into the middle school with much older kids.

“We know they’re very different children, with very different needs,” School Superintendent Marc Gousse said.

Gousse, along with several department heads, hosted the forum, following the same format as the first one on Dec. 1, a question-and-answer session to inform and take suggestions from the public on the budget process.

“Tonight is not about talking at you,” Gousse said. “It’s about listening to you, and answering your questions.”

From the start, Gousse has said the idea was to keep the public clued in every step of the way as the district once again battles with a budget gap that this time totals about $2.2 million. The gap is fueled by more cuts in state and federal education funding, along with salary increases mandated by collective bargaining agreements.

On Thursday, however, Gousse held the forum in the school cafeteria, not the library, like he did in December. With around 80 School Committee members, city officials, teachers, staff members, parents, and even schoolchildren nearly filling the room this time, the crowd was more than double the size of the group that assembled back in December.

The clear difference was that in the time between both forums, the district revealed some stark numbers about the budget, along with the suggestion of closing Prides Corner and the reconfiguration.

Right now, the city has two K-2 elementary schools, Saccarappa and Prides Corner, and two 3-5 elementary schools, Congin and Canal, while all grade 6-8 classes are taught at the middle school. If the closure happens, the plan, unveiled a few weeks ago by Gousse, would be to make Saccarappa, Canal, and Congin K-4 schools, and house grades 5-8 at the middle school.

The idea, reiterated during a brief presentation Thursday night, is to save the district money on maintenance and renovation. The plan would also allow the district to adopt a more modern and less disruptive learning experience for elementary students, who right now have to change buildings twice before they even get to high school.

“We chop up our kids’ K-8 experience too many times,” said Peter Lancia, the department’s director of teaching and learning.

Reactions from the audience suggested parents were not opposed to the concept, but many of the questions suggested more concerns about fifth-graders moving to the middle school, with older children.

Kelly Milewski said she wants to hear more about how the middle school would physically accommodate the larger student population. While the new building was designed for expansion, Milewski said, she is worried about pushing the school’s capacity.

“I’m not convinced they have the space here,” she said.

Her daughter, Abby, 9, asked if fifth-graders would still get recess, like she would if she stayed at Congin.

Officials told her that middle school students do get to go outside, but Jeremy Ray, the district’s operations manager, said there is no playground at the middle school, and no budget to build one.

“I would like a playground,” Abby said.

As to closing Prides Corner, parents said they were less concerned about that. Flynn Ross, a professor of teacher education at the University of Southern Maine, and a parent of two school-age children in Westbrook, said that the programming, not the buildings, is what matters.

“I’m invested in people, not buildings,” she said.

As to the consolidation, Ross said that makes sense, too.

“Lots of other schools around the country are doing it,” she said.

Jodie Griffith, president of the Prides Corner PTO, said she and other local parents also support the proposal, even if it means closing the neighborhood school.

“I believe it is the right thing to do,” she said.

Ray, in discussing the building’s needs, has said it would cost $2.8 million to fix Prides Corner’s most urgent problems, such as replacing the boiler, fixing the roof and improving driveway drainage. Griffith said it’s a cost the city can’t afford.

“I have no attachments to that building,” she said. “If it were my house, I wouldn’t put that much money into keeping it open.”

The budget now is at the administrative stage, which means Gousse and the district’s department heads are still trying to figure out what they think is the best budget for 2012-2013.

Once they finish that, which is expected to take at least another month, the School Committee’s finance committee will refine it further before it goes before the full School Committee.

Once that panel approves it, the budget will go before the City Council, and assuming it is approved, the public will vote on it in a referendum in June.

School Committee Chairman Ed Symbol, who attended both forums as an observer, said he has supported the idea of consolidation for some time. He and other school officials have tried to bring the subject up for serious discussion for years, but he said more favorable economic times have always granted the public the luxury of putting off a decision on the matter.

“I don’t think the timing was ever right,” he said. “It is now.”

With the district facing a massive budget gap for the second time in two years, Symbol said he thinks the public is more receptive.

“I think it gives us a springboard, and it gives us the ability to have the conversation,” he said.