WESTBROOK – For the second time in two months, the school district will solicit public input and offer information at a public forum next week on the upcoming budget.

The district’s first forum, held Dec. 1, happened just before School Superintendent Marc Gousse revealed he and the School Committee were considering closing Prides Corner School, along with a reconfiguration of existing elementary schools.

“I haven’t heard a lot of arguments against (it) from the public,” said School Committee member Alex Stone.

The move, if made official and approved along with the rest of the new budget by the voters next summer, would help close a $2.2 million budget gap being left in part by disappearing state and federal education funding.

Gousse has said he is hoping to avoid a repeat of the last budget process, which included meetings lasting until 1 a.m. with the public begging the school committee not to cut too many programs or positions to slash $3.7 million out of that budget.

In the end, there were layoffs, and programs were cut, but Gousse said the process, which he called “death by a thousand cuts,” had no direction, and was not the best way to run a budget process.

Jeremy Ray, the district’s director of operations, said if Prides Corner does not close, it will need $2.8 million in renovations and upgrades in the short term alone, and closing it will save a significant amount of money.

If the district closes the school, it will then consolidate Saccarappa, Congin and Canal schools to teach grades K-4, while all fifth-graders would be moved up to the middle school. This concept, said Peter Lancia, the district’s director of teaching and learning, would bring a more effective educational model to Westbrook.

Stone said while the suggested closing of Prides Corner will not fix the 2012-2013 budget problems in one blow, it will help save money, and will make for a better education overall.

“It’s not purely about money,” he said. “It’s about how to we improve the educational system.”

More than 30 people, including parents, teachers, staff members, and officials from both the city and the school district, attended the Dec. 1 meeting. Stone, who also chairs the committee’s finance committee, said this week that he thinks the crowd at the Jan. 5 event might be a bit bigger.

“I hope so, and I hope they come with interesting thoughts and conversation pieces,” he said.

The meeting is Thursday, Jan. 5, at 6 p.m. at the Westbrook Middle School.