There is a portable classroom village behind Southwest Junior High, a school whose 680 students surpass the 550-student capacity. But the portables’ days are numbered.

Two months after voters overwhelmingly supported about $63 million in school building and technology upgrades, Lawrence district officials are charging forward with the projects. Six schools, including Southwest, will receive building improvements.

“It’s been a long time coming,” said Tom Bracciano, the district’s operations and facility planning director.

The latest news: the district released schematic designs for Southwest, 2511 Inverness Drive. The $6.9 million project will add 16 classrooms and a gymnasium and expand the cafeteria.

Schematic designs for other schools will be completed soon, Bracciano said. The district’s construction oversight committee will meet June 15 to discuss some of the projects.

Included among them:

¢ $3.6 million for science labs, an east gym entrance, and locker room renovations at Lawrence High School.

¢ $1.3 million for industrial technology labs at Free State High School.

The Lawrence school district has just released schematic designs for Southwest Junior High School, 2511 Inverness Drive. The .9 million renovation project will add 16 classrooms and a gymnasium and expand the cafeteria. Schematic designs for other schools that will be renovated with funds from the bond issue passed in April are expected to be completed soon.

¢ $4 million for six new classrooms and a competition gym at Central Junior High School.

¢ $31.9 million to replace South Junior High School and renovate Broken Arrow School.

¢ $6.9 million for Southwest Junior High.

¢ $6 million for 13 new classrooms and a gymnasium at West Junior High School.

All schools also will benefit from about $8.9 million in technology improvements.

Southwest’s new construction will wrap around the back of the building on its northwest side.

The plans call for new classrooms designed specifically for special education. Currently, those classes are in a cramped portable and a former teacher workroom, Principal Trish Bransky said.

Some students have to wait to take keyboarding classes, because the current room is overbooked, Bransky said. A new keyboarding room will help fix that problem.

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And the construction, set to begin in February, will see the end of the portable village and a situation that Bransky said has not been safe for students.

The school must leave open doors that normally would be locked to allow students access to the portables. Students must tromp outside, sometimes in bad weather, to and from the portables. And the portables lack security, she said.

Bransky said all students at some point likely spend time in the portables.

“I wouldn’t want my child in a portable classroom,” she said.

Schematics for Central Junior High and West Junior High are expected to be ready soon.