Teacher Diane McGee said Tuesday that reliance on portable classrooms at Southwest Junior High School placed students in jeopardy.

Every 45 minutes at Southwest, one-third of its 650 students make the move to or from the main building and nine portables. Monitoring students’ well-being is difficult, said McGee, a seventh-grade geography teacher at Southwest.

She said students who go to portables must contend with the weather, and faculty based in portables feel cut off from the rest of Southwest’s staff.

In short, McGee said, the trailers are “not conducive to learning.”

Her pitch was aimed at Lawrence school board members at the fifth of six public forums on the district’s ongoing facilities study. About 20 members of the public were at the two-hour meeting.

The board’s goal is a 20-year facility master plan and development of a bond issue that finances school improvements.

Board President Scott Morgan said the board likely would set aside money for replacement of some, but not all, portables in the district. Junior highs would have priority, he said.

Meanwhile, supporters and opponents of school closings attended the forum at Southwest, 2511 Inverness Drive.

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Deb Passig, co-chairwoman of Quail Run School’s site council, endorsed the board’s decision to have a minimum of two sections, or classrooms, at each elementary grade level even if that led to consolidation.

Three schools earmarked for closure – East Heights, Centennial and Riverside – are not full two-section schools.

“We see many benefits from being a multisection school,” Passig said.

East Heights parent Vicki Scott said small elementary schools should stay open. Some kids need intimate academic environments, she said.

“A lot of East Heights students are fragile,” she said.