FREEBURG — Lisa Neff was among many residents in this tight-knit community who feared losing the heart of the neighborhood when Freeburg-Washington Elementary School closed.

“There was a loss when the school closed. The school was the hub of Freeburg,” said Neff, a parent of four children who attended Freeburg-Washington school.

Today, 10 years after the two-story brick school house was shut down, it’s been converted into a community center and still thrives as a main gathering place for residents to play basketball, host parties and organizations such as the Girl Scouts.

“We were fortunate the building was sold and that it still is the hub of the community,” Neff said.

The debate raging now in the Danville Area School District is similar to discussions that have occurred in several area districts, including Selinsgrove.

School directors in the Line Mountain School District recently ended a long and emotional debate when school directors voted to renovate community elementary schools. The Milton Area School District has retained community elementary schools through the years, but shifting populations could put the building issue back on the school board’s agenda.

Consolidation in Selinsgrove

Selinsgrove Area School District has closed four neighborhood schools in the past 25 years, beginning with the Shamokin Dam Elementary school off Eighth Avenue in 1983.

Three more elementary schools followed in 1997, Chapman-Union School off Routes 11-15 near Port Trevorton; the former Monroe Township school building on a site now occupied by the Pet Smart store; and Freeburg-Washington school.

Only the closure of the Freeburg school prompted an outcry since it was the only true neighborhood school, said Elementary School Principal Lorinda Krause, who was also a parent of children attending Monroe Township elementary school when the closures occurred.

Unlike the Freeburg school, the other buildings lacked the close-knit neighborhood atmosphere primarily because students couldn’t walk to the schools located along a busy road.

“Monroe Township was a lovely little school, but I wasn’t that concerned about it closing,” Krause said.

Superintendent Frederick Johnson didn’t take over as school leader until 2001, long after the debate was settled, but said money was at the heart of the closures and the voting board felt having all students on the Selinsgrove campus was a more efficient way for the 205 teachers to deliver education to about 2,700 students.

Neff, who’s now employed as a first-grade teacher at Selinsgrove Elementary, said two of her children were still attending the grades K-4 Freeburg-Washington school when it closed in 1997.