Temporary Classrooms Are Bad For the Environment, and Worse For Kids

tcd004 (134130) writes "You've always suspected those trailer-type portable classrooms are no good, right? It turns out you're right. Analysis of prefabricated classrooms in Washington shows the structures often don't allow for proper ventilation, leading to terrible air quality for kids. Students in temporary classrooms have higher rates of absenteeism than those in standard classrooms. And the energy-inefficient structures often become permanent, sucking on school energy bills for decades, and requiring more upkeep than permanent classrooms. What's needed are new designs for healthy, sustainable temporary classrooms."

Comments

Re:Flawed?

[MightyYar]

Yes, but if land is at a premium, then sometimes you need to relocate while the new structure is built. My district is replacing every single school in the system one at a time, and so they need to use trailers for the students who are currently having their school rebuilt. No one thinks this is ideal, but no one has suggested a better idea, either.

Re:Oxymoron

[gstoddart]

Some of these old school building have inefficient boilers that are over 40 years old... they aren't exactly winning any efficiency awards. Moving students to a temporary location and then rehabilitating or replacing the old facility can be a net environmental gain.

Sure, that's one possibility.

But, allow me to offer another.

Where I live, schools seem to be going up quite fast. Without exception, within a few months of the school opening (if not before), they truck in the portables.

Brand new schools, with portables.

So, either school boards are uniformly stupid, and can't add. Or cities are failing to make the developers pay enough to build adequate schools for the amount of houses they build. Or school boards are so under funded, they start off designing a school they know will be outgrown before its even open.

In any case, from what I see, they're being used to compensate for short-sighted planning or too-small budgets on brand new schools more than they're being used for generating any net environmental gain due to remediating old heating systems.

But every single school near me, some built withing the last 3 years, most built in the last 10, has portables. And they more are less going to be there permanently.