Portable use back on the upswing in local schools

[Guest guest]

Portable use back on the upswing in local schools

The Brampton Guardian - Ontario, Canada*

Friday June 29 2007

ROGER BELGRAVE, Staff Writer

http://www.northpeel.com/news/article/28423

Portable classrooms have made a comeback at local school boards.

There was a time when both the Dufferin-Peel Catholic District

School Board and the Peel District School Board were working to

eliminate inventories of portable classrooms. Susceptible to

infiltration by toxic mould, the aging classrooms had become

potential health hazards for students and staff. Cleaning up the

problems had also become expensive work for school boards across

Ontario.

School boards embarked on portable remediation programs and capital

construction initiatives designed to get rid of the makeshift

accommodations and return students to classrooms made of brick and

mortar.

Student population growth and a provincial government strategy to

lower class sizes have combined to effectively halt school board

steps to reduce the use of portables.

The provincial government is requiring Ontario school boards to

reduce class sizes in all kindergarten to Grade 3 classrooms. Since

2003, Premier Dalton McGuinty and the Liberal government has

allocated millions of dollars so school boards could hire more

teachers to lower student/teacher ratios in primary grades.

When classes resume next September, at least 90 per cent of all

primary classes must have 20 or fewer students. The remaining 10 per

cent of classes may have a maximum of 23 students.

To reduce current class sizes, more classrooms have to be physically

constructed to accommodate students removed from those larger

existing classes. School boards have had to use portables to help

meet accommodation needs.

In the years leading up to the 2003 provincial election, the

Catholic school board managed to reduce its portable inventory to

397 from 738 classrooms. According to an administrative staff

report, reductions have ceased to make sure there is sufficient

space to meet class size reduction targets next year.

Planning and Operations Superintendent Melito told the board at

an April 24 meeting that administration shared trustee concerns

about portables once again becoming a health issue for staff and

students.

" For the foreseeable future we don't see reducing our portable

inventory, " he said.

About a decade ago, the public school board had reduced its

portables to about 400 from 800 classrooms. That inventory has

climbed back up to about 739 classrooms, according to Planning and

Accommodation Controller Randy .

Most are in Brampton

About 432 of those portables are in Brampton, where enrolment growth

is on the increase. said approximately 50 per cent of the

board's portable classrooms are being used to handle student

population growth, about 25 per cent is dedicated to the class size

reduction initiative and the other 25 per cent serve as temporary

accommodations for students awaiting construction of new schools.

The board uses a " mould protocol, " developed in collaboration with

the Catholic school board and regional health department officials,

to identify and deal with any potential health hazards that might be

caused by portable mould, said . Any sign of water

penetration, condensation or mould in the classrooms trigger

procedures designed to ensure the health and safety of students and

staff, he explained.

" We're pretty confident we're on top of it, " said.

He also noted improvements in the design and construction materials

used to build portable classrooms have helped to cut down on the

development of mould problems.

[Guest guest]

There is an interesting website I saw recently on innovative uses for

shipping containers that has a lot of architecture linked from it.

Much of it seems healthy and probably not as expensive as traditionally

built, and it also seems much less likely to support mold growth than those

nasty 'portable' trailers.

http://firmitas.org/

also see this set of projects..

http://www.containercity.com/