Something hit me as I walked into East Penn Elementary for their Earth Day event in late April.

It wasn’t just the heat of a school without air conditioning in the spring months, it was nostalgia.

I attended two elementary schools. One of them was a carbon copy of the East Penn building.

It was a brick one-story building with some kind of chimney jutting up near the entrance.

Now I’m only 31, but the changes in the life of an elementary school student since the mid-90s have been pretty drastic.

Walking through the halls of East Penn, I was reminded of the energy that we felt at the end of the year. It meant field trips to New York or Philadelphia to visit zoos and museums.

There was always an energy at the end of the year. Again, it may have had something to do with that lack of air conditioning.

Now I won’t get into whether or not it’s the right decision to close the schools. Plenty of space in this paper has been devoted to that issue.

But there’s no doubt that there were some things that were unique about a neighborhood elementary school that students in an elementary center won’t experience.

There was the thrill of being able to walk to school on my own, and later, riding my bike and locking it to the bike rack outside.

Our school had two classes for each grade. You spent the whole day with that teacher, except when you went to music, art or gym class.

If you got in trouble, chances are your parents had a friend who would get word back home before you got there.

Our annual Halloween parade literally went past our houses.

And who can forget pulling the foil off the top of a school lunch — Hot hambo or so-called cheesesteak — that had been steamed for several hours after being cooked at the high school commissary.

But the most exciting thing about attending a neighborhood school was the eventual transition to the middle school. We were all filled with excitement getting to meet the kids from the other elementary schools in the district when we eventually moved up to the middle school.

I doubt that the children of Mahoning, East Penn, Franklin and Shull-David elementary schools are that upset about making the transition. Their parents probably care more about the old schools than they do.

The kids are probably feeling much like I did as I prepared to ship off to middle school — the excitement of having class with your friends from youth sports who attended other schools. And the feeling of accomplishment that came with the responsibility of boarding the bus yourself. Yes, we did actually board the bus ourselves.

Attending a neighborhood elementary school was a big part of my youth. But I am sure that students who attend an elementary center will have fond memories of the way they were raised, too.

Then, someday, they can look back with nostalgia on their days at the elementary center, as the next generation of children attend elementary school online.