ROBERTSDALE, Alabama --- The public is invited to a meeting at 2 p.m. Monday in the gymnasium at Rosinton School with Baldwin County Schools Superintendent Dr. Alan Lee, regarding the possible closing of the school.

Baldwin County’s so-called “Penny Tax” was passed in 2010 and designed to boost funding for the School System. The tax is scheduled to end in 2013 and is on the Nov. 6 ballot for renewal.

On Oct. 4, Lee announced a plan of scheduled cuts should the county lose the estimated $28,250,000 in revenue generated by the tax.

Included in the plan would be the proposed closing of five elementary schools in the area, plus the combining of Bay Minette Elementary and Bay Minette Middle and the closing of the South Baldwin and North Baldwin Centers for Technology.

Among the elementary schools the School System plans to close should the tax not be renewed are Rosinton and Elsanor schools in Central Baldwin.

“It was a shock,” said Dr. Theresa Hardin, principal of Rosinton School. “We all support the ‘Penny Tax’ but we had no idea we would be on the list of schools scheduled to close. It was our understanding that we were on the priority list for expansion in 2014. We’re just a little confused out here.”

Hardin said the school’s closing raises several questions, first and foremost is where the students are going to be placed.

“We have some of our students in the outlying areas that get on the bus at 5 in the morning,” she said. “Are they going to have to get on the bus at 4 a.m. to go to Loxley or Robertsdale Elementary?”

And where, Hardin asked, are they going to put the students when the get to their new schools?

“Will they take our portable classrooms, or will they add to classrooms that are already overcrowded,” she said. “These are things that I think need to be addressed before we move forward with this.”

In the end, Hardin said, she thinks closing the school would be devastating to the small, close-knit community.

“School activities are a central part of the community,” she said. “We have really good people here and we have a lot of heritage in this school with roots going back five generations.”

For a complete copy of the plan, go to the School System’s website, bcbe.org, and click on 2012 BUDGET CRISIS in the left hand column under Communications/Media.