WARWICK — A study panel charged with identifying at least one elementary school to recommend for closure next year in the southeastern portion of the city narrowed the number under consideration for closing from six to two Thursday night.

The committee named the Greene and Warwick Neck Elementary Schools after poring over enrollment charts, building maintenance needs, data on the number of families affected and sheaves of reports filled with other facts and figures.

The panel — which consists of administrators, parents and principals — is slated to make a formal recommendation to the School Committee by the middle of next month.

Its meetings are open to the public, but no audience comments are allowed at the work sessions. In forming the study panel in February, School Committee members said that ample time will be scheduled for public comment once they receive the recommendation.

About 80 people attended Thursday night’s meeting.

Warwick closed three elementary schools this year to save money and school board members said that they were reluctantly resorting to that option again because of cuts in state aid and a tax levy limit that will affect how much the city can support its schools.

Because the three elementary schools that did not open this past fall — Drum Rock, Rhodes and Potowomut — were all in the regions that “feed” Toll Gate and Pilgrim High Schools, officials asked the study panel to only look at the six elementary schools that feed into Warwick Veterans High School.

Those elementary schools are Greene, Lippitt, Oakland Beach, Park, Sherman and Warwick Neck.

The amount of charts and factors that the panel is looking at are dizzying and at times, contradictory. For example, one school may look like a candidate for closure because it needs costly roof work or other repairs, but when how many families will be affected or how its population can be absorbed by other schools it does not seem practical.

To further complicate matters, study committee members have also had to consider the planned expansion of the airport even though there are no final plans or firm time table to guide them. Based on what has been said publicly so far by airport officials, committee members said they were trying to take into account that the airport will expand to the south and possibly force the closure of the Wickes Elementary School.

Although Wickes is not in the area being looked at now, some of the six schools being reviewed are close to Wickes and would have to be available to absorb that population. For that reason, panel members eliminated Lippitt from the list of schools that may be closed.

Before choosing Greene and Warwick Neck as the two to be studied more intensely, panel members said that their top priority is disrupting the least amount of families as possible.

Norwood Elementary School Principal Nancy Plumb noted that other major concerns are making sure students are not subjected to long bus rides and that the schools that absorb the extra students be ready to continue their education without any compromise in quality. The other principal on the panel is Lynn Dambruch from Robertson Elementary. She and Plumb are at schools that had to absorb students at the start of the school year and are familiar with the relocation process.

David Testa, one of two parents on the panel, said he has visited all six schools and is confident that the quality of education will not be affected for any students who are transferred.

Last year’s meetings to study school closures were jam-packed, emotional events with parents and children waving signs that pleaded for the preservation of their neighborhood schools. So far, this year’s meetings are much lower-keyed.

Also, unlike last year, no teachers or representatives of other school employees are on the panel. Unions were asked to participate, but declined this time.

Robert Bushell, director of elementary education for the Warwick schools, has had to pull the bulk of statistics together and said that making sure all pertinent factors are weighed is a Herculean task. He estimated that he and his staff have already devoted more than 400 hours to the research and that more time will be spent as he readies information for next week’s meeting.

That session will be held on Thursday, April 9, at 6:30 p.m. at Gorton Junior High School.

School Supt. Peter P. Horoschak said that the School Department learned a lot from last year’s process and is working even harder to make sure that the decision-making is “as transparent” as possible. All of the charts and other data presented to the study panel are available to the public on the Warwick schools’ Web site: www.warwickschools.org. School officials have also created an Internet forum for parents to post their comments and pose questions for the study panel to answer.

Directions to the site are on the School Department’s home page.

bpoliche@projo.com