Lawrence school district getting rid of portable classrooms

Still in play

Portables still in use at Lawrence school district sites:

• Deerfield, one.

• East Heights (a district building used by the Boys & Girls Club), two.

• Hillcrest, four.

• Lawrence High, one.

• New York, one, although it’s officially termed an “annex” because it rests on a foundation.

• Sunflower, one.

• Sunset Hill, two.

• Wakarusa Valley, one.

• Woodlawn, one.

The Lawrence school district is making plans to rid its elementary campuses of portables, but there’s no firm timeline when the last of the trailers will be eliminated.

Some of the district’s 14 portable classrooms — installed in past years to handle enrollment spikes — will be taken out of service next year as the district reconfigures its elementary schools to handle grades kindergarten through five, said Rick Doll, superintendent of the Lawrence school district.

The reconfiguration will be expected to open up 33 classrooms in the district’s 14 elementary schools for next year, providing room for some classes and programs to leave their trailers and come inside.

Other portable classrooms — such as those at Hillcrest School, home to English as a Second Language instruction and other programs — will remain in service next year and likely continue until other decisions are made, such as potential program reorganizations or projects for a future bond issue.

“We will get rid of some of our portables,” Doll said. “But I don’t have all the moving parts in place to know where that will be.”

At least two already are set to be auctioned in the next few weeks: one previously used for child care at Lawrence High School, and another that no longer will be needed at Wakarusa Valley School, because the school is closing at the end of this school year.

Eliminating portables is one of several key recommendations forwarded to the Lawrence school board in February by the Lawrence Elementary School Facility Vision Task Force. Task force members saw no need to keep the detached mobile buildings in use, dismissing them as inefficient and as substandard for instruction.

Scott Morgan, a board member who served as co-chairman of the task force, said that portables likely would remain in service until a comprehensive bond issue could be proposed — and approved — for remodeling, expanding and perhaps building new schools to accommodate the district’s elementary needs.

“All space will always be used. That’s just the nature of things,” said Morgan, who leaves the board in July. “They will be there until we can get a bond passed to replace that space.”

The district had more than 30 portables up until 2005, when voters approved a bond that financed additions at the district’s secondary schools, allowing many portables to be removed.