SAN ANTONIO -- As expected, the emotional and academic concerns of parents in the San Antonio Independent School District came out in the first of a sextet of scheduled meetings in advance of possible school closings.

The 30-minute presentation served as a chance for district officials to explain their thoughts behind closing six schools in the SAISD as well as allow parents the opportunity to make their feelings known.

Wednesday evening's meeting at Cooper Middle School at 1700 Tampico St. was met with skepticism by most in attendance, but district officials said the contractions were necessary to best serve students.

"The whole idea of closing schools will help us achieve all of these priorities," said district superintendent Robert Duron. "Those priorities being better electives, more teachers and more dollars going into the classroom."

The district announced its intention to consider closing six schools in the district last week, including Travis and Bowie elementaries along with Mann, Carroll and Pfeiffer academies.

Parental reaction was expected to be emotional, but some parents raised academic concerns as well. Sonia Ortiz told KSAT 12 News that she's worried her son's grades might falter if moved to another campus.

"He struggled through elementary school and for the first time is doing well," she said. "I'm afraid if he moves, classes will be large and they won't pay attention to him."

District officials also released their plan to split up Cooper Middle School.

Three middle schools in the district have approximately 1,000 openings, according to district officials, more than enough to absorb the 339 students currently at Cooper. Rhodes has about 100 openings, Lowell has about 300 openings and Tafolla has about 600 openings, according to district officials.

District staff said parents would be allowed to choose which school their child would attend.

There are five remaining meetings scheduled at the five campuses marked for closure. A list of those meetings as well as times and dates can be found here.