Ever since the decision was made to start the process of closing Pine Forge Elementary School, there has been controversy about the topic, angry parents, and worries about the kids’ educations. Among all of this, is the voices of the people who have concerns about it.

Closing the school would benefit the district financially, but every kid, parent and teacher associated with Pine Forge would be affected in a number of ways. Being a kid at a new school is a hard thing to overcome, and imagine 250 kids doing it. 

The closure brings a lot of problems with it. Problems such as where will the kids go to school, bus routes and classroom crowding. The district class sizes are already climbing, and the addition of the Pine Forge students to other school’s classrooms would make it too crowded for the kids to learn as much.

Along with that is the needed changes to bus routes and where the buses have to go out of their way to pick up PFES students. It will be quite the headache for BASD’s bus drivers. 

The distribution of Pine Forge Students to other elementary schools, excluding 5th graders, will be quite the challenge for the district, and may lead to even more problems.

There is also one obvious and major benefit to closing the school which has to do with money.  To keep Pine Forge open would cost the school district approximately 16 million dollars over the next 30 years. This money could be spent on other important things in other schools like the football stadium at BASH and supplies that are needed at other elementary schools.

The closing of Pine Forge would also help with the current debt of the district, because of the less spending on keeping PFES open. Going along with the extra money from closing, it’s possible that we could get rid of all debt entirely.

The closing of Pine Forge would be a good thing and a bad thing, but all agree that the closing of the school would have a significant effect on the district.