Stonington — A handful of speakers expressed concerns about long school bus rides and the effect on extracurricular activities at a forum Wednesday night on a possible plan to close Pawcatuck Middle School and house all middle school students at Mystic Middle School.

About 40 people attended the forum at Pawcatuck Middle School but just three addressed Superintendent of Schools Van Riley, school board Chairman Frank Todiso and school board member Alexa Garvey. Another forum will be held at Mystic Middle School at 6 p.m. Thursday. A meeting was held earlier Wednesday with Pawcatuck staff, and another will be held Thursday for Mystic staff.

Garvey opened the forum by telling the residents that “we need to hear your concerns. We need to hear your ideas and your opinions,” and stressed that a decision will be made based on what’s best academically for the students.

Riley urged residents to contact him by phone or email or meet with him in person with their questions and concerns. He said he will be publishing answers to all questions that are asked in the coming weeks.

“This is a big question for the community. We want you to have all the information you need,” he said.

He said the school board could make a decision on the consolidation at its December meeting. When the actual consolidation could take place is not yet known and likely would depend on the completion of the $67 million elementary school renovation project.

Riley highlighted the report by the Middle School Consolidation Committee, which now plans to present its recommendations to the school board.

Because of a decline in enrollment, which is projected to continue, Riley said it is increasingly difficult to offer the programs that school officials would like to offer students and that problem will only get worse. He said the idea guiding the committee is how to maintain and improve instruction with the declining enrollment.

He said the new middle school would have to be located at Mystic Middle School because Pawcatuck does not have enough space to house all middle school students. The school administration office now located in Old Mystic then could be relocated to the Pawcatuck facility, which Riley said also could be used to establish special education programs that could attract tuition-paying students from other towns, as well as serve as a community and recreation center.

He said there would be no reduction in the teaching staff, as teachers would move with students to Mystic. The town would save up to $1 million a year by reducing administrative, custodial and clerical positions.

The influx of teachers would allow the school system to offer more academic programs and extracurricular activities.

Riley said that if the consolidation takes place, Mystic should have a new name and mascot. “We should not send Pawcatuck students to Mystic Middle School. That’s not right. It will be a new school for both groups of students,” he said.

Parent Jack Morehouse said his daughter’s two-mile bus ride to Mystic Middle School now takes 45 minutes and he was worried about how long the ride would be for students from some sections of Pawcatuck. Riley said school officials are evaluating bus routes to avoid long trips.

With the combination of students, Morehouse said he also was concerned about kids being cut from basketball teams and jazz band. Riley said it would be his intention to have numerous teams because he does not believe in cutting middle school students from such programs. In addition, he said having more students would result in opportunities to have more extracurricular activities than exist now.

Parent Ashley Gillece, who attended Pawcatuck Middle, said it may be difficult for Pawcatuck parents to drive and pick up students from extracurricular activities in Mystic. She also criticized school officials for not being able to say where fifth-grade students will attend school next year. They were scheduled to move from the middle school to the new elementary school next fall but a construction delay means the project will not be done until the winter of 2018.

The consolidation report states that projections estimate that the number of students in grades 6 through 8 will continue to decrease to between 400 and 440 over the next few years, with half in each school. But Pawcatuck has an official capacity of 380 and Mystic 525, with the ability to go to 625. The maximum predicted enrollment over the next 20 years is just 447, far less than Mystic’s capacity.