By Anne Spencer

Published: May 5, 2008

Portable buildings will play a big role in giving the room that’s needed for more children at county schools next year.

In the last couple of years, major construction has created new classrooms, but now more space must be found rather quickly.

Portables – also called relocatables – are filling that bill. Five new ones are going up, and a few will be moved around.

Schools that are getting more space for the 2008-’09 year are Sneads Elementary, Riverside Elementary, and Jackson Alternative School. Enrollment isn’t increasing in the district as a whole, but these schools are seeing a rise.

Sneads Elementary has its old classroom building, a new classroom addition, and is getting two more portables to bring its total to seven. There’s been no let-up in the number of new students, Sneads Principal Cheryl McDaniel says.

“We’ve had an increase in enrollment over the past three years, and we look for the kindergarten class coming in to be the same (higher number). We’ve been gaining kindergarteners for several years,” McDaniel said.

“We’ll be sending 70 students to Grand Ridge Middle School this year, but our kindergarten for the last three years has been over a hundred. And in a few years, we went from having to have three teachers for kindergarten to having to have five kindergarten teachers, and then we went from having four second-grade teachers to seven second-grade teachers, and we’re out of space to put them all,” McDaniel said.

“And I will still have situations where I’ll have to have two teachers in one classroom to meet the class-size amendment law,” the principal said.

Another year of co-teaching will be allowed, she said, “because (the state) realized they just had to give districts more time to construct classrooms.”

The maximum class-size law reaches full implementation this fall: no more than18 students in pre-K through third-grade; no more than 22 for fourth through eighth; and no more than 25 for ninth through 12th.

The law came about through a citizen referendum and has been phased in, with the maximum at first figured by district average, then by school.

McDaniel says the two new portables will be placed where the other portable buildings are. Currently, three are used for classrooms, one as a science lab and one for the health clinic.

Another school getting more portables is Jackson Alternative in Marianna. Principal Sharon Macaluso says the school has no portables now but is due for two old ones and one brand new.

“We’re adding new classes. Our population is growing, and we’re very happy to be able to serve the students who require our intervention,” Macaluso said.
Riverside Elementary is getting two new portables.

“Our enrollment will be up next year,” said Principal John Ellerbee. “We expect about 730 students; we have 690 right now.”

It’s possible, too, he said, that the class size law will require more space. The school currently has five portables, four of which are classrooms.

Finding space for the others hasn’t been easy because of “a land-locked situation” at Riverside, Ellerbee said. “But the engineers and the architect have been out and we’ve located a spot that works.”

According to facilities director Buddy Dickson, two trees will be taken out.

The other school on the list for a portable will be getting a replacement. According to Cottondale Elementary Principal Diane Long, a newer portable is taking the place of one used now by pre-K.

“It’s in need of work and probably beyond repair,” Long said.

Cottondale has one other portable but it doesn’t house a classroom.

Ted Tyus Construction won the contract for the five portable buildings with a bid of $347,522. Construction will be funded by the board’s local-option sales tax.

A previous design is being used, and all will be ready by fall. They will all be connected to other buildings by covered walkways.

Dickson says portables are useful for interim periods with their 25-year life. “They allow us to shift with the population as we need it.”

He told the school board recently that less than 4 percent of the population will be in portables, and, “We’re not throwing up portables to meet class-size reduction. We’re very lucky we got out ahead of (that).”

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