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

Flawed?

[Anonymous Coward]

> What's needed are new designs for healthy, sustainable temporary classrooms.

No. What's needed are more permanent classrooms.

Re:Flawed?

[Agares]

I was thinking the same thing. Also the problems we have with our education system is the reason why my future kids (got one on the way) will be either home schooled or sent to a very good private school.

Re:Flawed?

[Trepidity]

You'd almost think the humans who came up with the idea of "buildings", durable structures intended to last for a significant period of time while sheltering their occupants from the elements, were on to something.

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:Flawed?

[The Grim Reefer]

> What's needed are new designs for healthy, sustainable temporary classrooms.

No. What's needed are more permanent classrooms.

What's needed is better planning to begin with. By the time the "analysis" is done for schools, and road for that matter a ridiculous amount of time will have passed. Then to get approval it has to go through years of bureaucracy. So you end up with a study that projected the next 20 years. But by the time all of the federal, state and local governments get done it goes to the bidding stage By the time the actual building is finished it's already 10 to 15 years past the original analysis. And usually the people in the planning stage took the most optimistic numbers. So you end up with a school that is just about right by the time it is ready. Then it's overcrowded in 1-2 years, with another 20+ year of usability expected.

Re:Flawed?

[NotDrWho]

No. What's needed are more permanent classrooms.

Yeah, but then the hippies who sponsored this "news report" won't get $200,000 a pop for their "sustainable" portable classroom.

Re:Flawed?

[rolfwind]

I bet the old ones aren't even that old. And these stupid things cost many 10s of millions.

They should design them modular so that additions can be built when needed.

Re:Flawed?

[jellomizer]

The problem that a lot of schools have is the population per area changes over time.

For example.
1960's City has a lot of kids. They go to school graduate then move out of City A because their parents who lived there made the City too expensive to grow up in.
1980's Suburb has a lot of kids, They go to school and graduate then move out of the Suburb because their parents have made the suburb too expensive to grow up in.
2000's SubRural "more remote suburbs" schools are finding they are getting an influx of students from the parents people who have moved out of the expensive suburbs. The City prices have gone down... However the quality of life sucks there so the big schools of the 1960's are getting more vacent and run down. And the 1980 suburb schools are showing a decline as well.

So we are having schools that needs a lot of money to maintain that are getting more empty. Temporary classrooms are the key to meet education demand having without a multi-million dollar attachment that will be obsolete in a few years.

Now if you want permanent classrooms, we need to work on a way where property prices just don't go up, for the communities, as people who get older acquire more wealth thus make an ageing community that is too expensive for the younger generation who is starting out.

Re:Flawed?

[MightyYar]

I've personally never attended a school that did not have additions, but I recognize the possibility that someone could be so stupid as to design one without making expansion possible.

Re:Flawed?

[Anonymous Coward]

This sounds like someone who has no idea how things are done.

I've participated in my local school district's planning process. They hire a demographer to project growth patterns and plan accordingly. They're currently planning to put a bond proposal on the November ballot that, if passed, would have kids in newly built schools in 3 years, which is about as fast as they can be designed and built. The demographer projects growth as far out as possible, but you know what? It's not an exact science. There are x number of undeveloped lots in the school district. (This is the primary driver of student growth.) When will they be built on? No one knows. Will they be single family houses or apartment complexes? No one knows. I have no idea how it could be remotely possible to predict student growth more than 3-4 years out.

Then, there's the question of the voters. When the district decides it needs new buildings, it has to go to the voters to get permission to borrow money to build new buildings. If the voters don't pass a bond election, the district has to do things like rent portable buildings.

"Years of bureaucracy" and "study that projected the next 20 years" is not at all the reality in my experience. (Which is admittedly small.)

The federal and state governments, to the best of my knowledge, have zero input into local districts' growth plans.

Bidding that takes place 10 to 15 years past the original analysis? Geez, in what school district do you live? That's certainly not the case in my district in north Texas.

Using the most optimistic numbers? Again, not in my district. They use not only conservative numbers for growth, but for tax revenue projections as well. We project a 5% property valuation for year 1 after the bond is passed, a 3% increase in valuation for year 2, and 0% increase for years 3 and on.

So, I wonder, Grim Reefer: are you speaking from knowledge, or are you pulling "facts" out of your ass?

Re:Flawed?

[cdrudge]

I bet the old ones aren't even that old.

You'd probably bet wrong in a many of cases.

My local school district is the largest in Indiana and hasn't built a new school since 1976. There's 62 buildings owned by the district, with 51 of them being schools and the average age is 54 years old. Almost all of the buildings were built during rapid population growth to educate the baby boomer generation. In the 60+ years since then the population has continued to grow but physical classroom sizes have remained the same. You can't easily make each classroom larger.

More kids, new technology, heating/cooling demands increased, funds dwindling while other expenses rising have led to many schools to become inadequate. Environmental conditions when they were built were also different with less understanding (or maybe just less caring) of proper air ventilation and air quality, building material, etc make older schools pale in comparison to a modern building. And if eventually a school does get a major remodeling or expansion, due to the time that many were built there are huge expenses due to asbestos and other hazardous building materials requiring proper remediation.

With older building it's sometimes (often?) easier, cheaper in the long run to build and operate, and better to raze what you have and rebuild from scratch for significant expansion or remodeling then try to fix a building past it's normal usable lifetime.

Re:Flawed?

[Kiaser Zohsay]

Lack of planning is the problem. On a cost per square foot basis, temporary classrooms are very close to the same as new construction. The primary difference is lead time. A new construction project can take a couple of years, just for the construction, disregarding whatever political process leads up to the school board deciding to pull the trigger. On the other hand, temporary classrooms can be set up in a few weeks. My school district has done plenty of both over the last several years, including both new schools at new sites and expansions to existing schools. New construction has decreased the need for trailer parks at schools, but not eliminated it.

Re:Flawed?

[MightyYar]

Well, again, every school I've been in had additions. It's fine to get the initial size wrong - forecasts can be difficult. It's quite another thing to design a school that can't be expanded.

Re:Flawed?

[LWATCDR]

We have more than enough class rooms they are just in the wrong places.
The actual number of young people has been decreasing since the end of the baby boom.
I do agree that more classrooms is better but I really want them to take a pyramid approach to schools.
Lots of small elementary schools with no busing. You go to school near where you live.
Middle schools are fewer and much larger so you meet more people and have an opportunity to take more diverse classes.
High schools are massive and very few with as diversity in classes and students.

Re:Flawed?

[Anonymous Coward]

> What's needed are new designs for healthy, sustainable temporary classrooms.

No. What's needed are more permanent classrooms.

No. What's needed is to break up the govt school monopoly so that schools, both private and govt run, become accountable. Barring a breakup of the monopoly, at least fire every administrator and staff member above the level of school principal and privatize as many school services as possible. The U.S. spends waaaayyyy more on education at all levels than any other country (okay, I think there is one tiny place in Europe that spends more per capita, but that's the only exception). The existence of temporary classrooms is a testament to the incompetence of school administration. School board members have no legitimate job function; they just take taxpayer-funded fact-finding junkets and compose "7 steps to excellence" plans or "12 way points to the future" schemes while drawing preposterously high salaries and benefits and babbling about diversity and the need to hire more teachers, the same teachers whose union dues help get the school board members elected, the same school board members whose salaries, benefits and staff costs could cover the cost of more teachers, whose union dues would help to keep the board members in their positions, which are used to advocate hiring more teachers, whose union dues ...

Re:Flawed?

[The Grim Reefer]

I'm speaking from following these types of things for several decades in numerous states and localities. Some areas are better than others.

Where I live currently there is an elementary school that has been long over due to be renovated. When it rains they have to close sections of it off because it leaks so much. Part of the problem has to do with money. Not so much the lack of it, but who's going to benefit from it. The city counsel has decided that they want to tie it to building a new road into an entirely different area. The road will only benefit a small part of the city, but those that live there have influence with the city counsel. Even though they already have land they own that would be fine. Or to simply rebuild it in the same location. But instead new land is going to be purchased and eminent domain is going to be used to build the road. This has been in the discussion stage for several years now.

I've lived in other areas that literally had trailers being used as class rooms 3 years after the school was built.

I think Pennsylvania was one of the worst places I've lived in regards to this type of thing. Particularly in regards to roads. There was an intersection that was a 2-way stop dozens of people were killed there each year. So they did a study to determine if it warranted a traffic light. Obviously it did. So they commissioned another study rather than put a light up. And then another. I followed it after I left the area as I struck me as such an insane thing to keep postponing. After 19 years and 5 studies they finally put up a traffic light. Of course people kept getting killed, year after year, at that intersection.

Then, there's the question of the voters. When the district decides it needs new buildings, it has to go to the voters to get permission to borrow money to build new buildings. If the voters don't pass a bond election, the district has to do things like rent portable buildings.

The voters don't really have the ability to vote on these types of things. City counsel decides. They do hold hearings to listen to what he voters think. But, there is no real recourse if they go against the voters. To make matter worse, the pay for being on the city counsel is very low and those that are on it run unopposed every election.

The federal and state governments, to the best of my knowledge, have zero input into local districts' growth plans.

They provide some percentage of the educational funding. There's been a lot of debate regarding the value of taking federal funding as it only accounts for 5% of our total district budget. By accepting that money they are required to administer the SOL tests. This has made a real mess out of several states school systems.

Bidding that takes place 10 to 15 years past the original analysis? Geez, in what school district do you live? That's certainly not the case in my district in north Texas.

I never said that. I said that from the time of the first analysis. I should have said from the first discussions begin. So from then until the first student sits at a desk in that school takes that long. The studies, planning, bidding, and building are all included in that time-frame.

Using the most optimistic numbers? Again, not in my district. They use not only conservative numbers for growth, but for tax revenue projections as well. We project a 5% property valuation for year 1 after the bond is passed, a 3% increase in valuation for year 2, and 0% increase for years 3 and on.

Lucky you.

Re:Flawed?

[PongStroid]

Define old. At my son's school, across the street from our house we had a classroom in a portable. And not just *any* portable: Built in 1941 for the army, and installed at the school in 1943 to temporarily help with overcrowding in the regular classrooms. Our neighbor, who is 95, lived here when it was installed and her kids (who are now great grandparents!) attended class in it. My son, now 13, also enjoyed this classroom. This "temporary" portable, literally spitting distance from the Hayward fault, wasn't even anchored to the ground - elevated by four feet of stacked blocks of wood . Even crazier... the thing was riddled with asbestos tiles, and had a mold problem. The portable went away last year - 70 years after it was installed. I'd like to think that the paperwork I submitted to the city and state to have the portable declared a historical landmark worthy of preservation had something to do with it.

Re:Flawed?

[PrimaryConsult]

One solution would be time separation. Some overcrowded NYC high schools would have an AM / PM shift. Another novel idea would be 4 day school weeks, accomplished either via longer days or a longer school year. One group M-TH, a second W-SAT, and an unlucky third shift (M,TU,F,SAT). In this manner, you have 2/3 the students and teachers in the school at any given moment. Only a handful of schools need to do it in order to reduce the pressure on the entire system, and I'd imagine with the draw of 3 days off a week there'd be no shortage of both student and staff applicants for those schools (thus no one would be forced into it).

Re:Flawed?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or they get resentful of wasted money. 300k for a school principle? But NOPE no money for new buildings. Growing up I remember getting "extra credit" if my parents would sign off on a bond for a brand new shiny high school. It passed, then no high school was built. They took the money, took vacations, bought every employee, including part time janitors, new laptops cuz "Technology is KEY!". There were plenty of "investigations" ie, payoffs to public officials, and they all concluded that while the bond was supposed to be for the building of a high school, "happiness" of the district employees was an acceptable alternative.

Re:Flawed?

[tlhIngan]

I've personally never attended a school that did not have additions, but I recognize the possibility that someone could be so stupid as to design one without making expansion possible.

Well, it's possible that the building was meant to have additions. But the additions consumed all the space that was available for it and the school still needs to expand. Except now it has to expand on parts that were never designed to have additions - e.g., the outdoor field gets encroached on, the playground area, etc.

Usually the additions get build and planning on where the next addition goes takes place. This often means the playground will have to be moved elsewhere, or other amenities shifted. Then you end up with stuff like the available open area gets shrunk and other things and before you know it, you really are out of space.

Sometimes the student population shift can be impressive - a school housing 1000 students with plans for expansion for another 400 students can see its population reach 2000 by the time the addition is completed, just by the way families migrate, immigration, etc. Or in the sanest case, open at 1400 students and be at capacity on completion rather than expecting it to fill up over the next 5 years or something.

And never mind trying to get approval to double the size of the school in the first place - going from 1000 students (at capacity) to 1400 isn't as big a stretch as trying to say that in a couple of years the student population would double.

Re:Flawed?

[swillden]

Now if you want permanent classrooms, we need to work on a way where property prices just don't go up, for the communities, as people who get older acquire more wealth thus make an ageing community that is too expensive for the younger generation who is starting out.

Or else get the younger generation accustomed to the idea that they're going to have to start small and gradually build up. That's the traditional pattern, but high mobility and greater wealth has convinced us that everyone should be able to buy a nice home in their 20s or 30s. The traditional pattern also led to much smaller homes, because people generally became able to trade up about the time their kids were leaving and they no longer needed the space.

Re:Flawed?

[LoRdTAW]

You need land for that to happen. I live around the corner from a large public school in New York City. The land was almost a split between the footprint of the building and the school yard itself. As the cities population grew, there was a shortage of classrooms. The solution was to extend the school and take away half of the school yard. So now the school yard is smaller. They also did this for another public grade school not too far from me as well. I know of one school that had what little of a school yard they had left filled in with an extension. Land plots of land are scarce or prohibitively expensive in cities.

There were also three new schools built near me, a high school and two grade schools. All on land that was purchased for what I can only assume was a lot of money. The high school was built on the site of an old multistory factory building. One grade school was squeezed into a lot was between a bowling alley and railroad tracks. The other was again between some buildings and next to some abandoned LIRR tracks.

My old Catholic grade school could no longer sustain itself as the neighborhood demographic changed. The school was sold off last year, demolished and a public school is taking its place.

The city is still short on classrooms. They setup a few of those trailer classrooms on the front lawn of the local high school and they do look ugly. And do students want to change classes on a rainy or cold snowy day?

It not as easy or cheap as we all want it to be.

Re:Flawed?

[sumdumass]

Its not really vacations and stuff, it is trust and poor stewardship.

An example, about two decades ago the local schools asked for a levy citing infrastructure nerds and specifically the hvac system at one middle school. About two years later, they put a bond issue on the ballot for a new hvac system. Some people asked questions and found that 90% of the levy went to administration salaries and benifits and the bond was actually tied to fixing the out dated hvac at ths school. Now schools in my area get a lot of fubding from property taxes so as property values increase, minus a bit of lag in the assesment, their funding increases. But they put another levy on the ballot a few years ago and the prople overwhelmingly rejected it. This happened for about 10 years strait then one of the directors retired and was replaced. The levy finally passed- it appeared that the money was going to the schools.But what they did was primarily soak teacher salaries which i don't have too much a problem with but the gave them raises highr than what the levy would cover. So they picked a school snd dropped most of the maintinence on it. In about 10 years, the parents started complaining about the school. The board put yet another levy on the ballot claiming the school wasn't fit so the needed to expand other schools. They even got kids to hold signs saying "kids matter" just down from all the polling offices. The levy passed and to date, it has been the last one

What they did with the nw levy was repair the condemmed school and make offices there that still arent used with a good portion being turned into a rec center for district teachers. It turns out that because of demographics shifts, the school easily fit into the other 5 elementary schools and money wasn't really needed.

Now of course when you ask ceertain people, they will paint that all rosie with built in excuses but it is factually correct. This also happened in a disrict right next to another that got busted altering NCLBA or ACES test scores in order to get federal money and the administrator had to be removed because she refused to step down even after federal charges where filed against her.

No, it isn't always about you spending yoyr money, it is also trusting that your money is needed and being spent properly on the kids.property values go up, funding does too.

Re:Flawed?

[cdrudge]

Longer days but fewer of them may work for some occupations, but my guess is that the current length of the day is designed for the child's learning capacity and ability to retain information that is given to them in faster, larger quantities.

Due to a particularly bad winter, my kids had to attend school for an extra hour for about a month and a half to make up a few of the many snow days they had off. Multiple teachers of theirs as well as a family member commented that the extra hour of classroom time wasn't the same as what that hour would have been during a normal schedule. Now maybe it would be different if it was always like that, I don't know.

The other consideration is who is going to teach longer school days and more of them? Most teachers are overworked, underpaid, and underfunded for what all they do. And you'd want them to work longer days in the classroom? And give up a weekend day?

Re:Flawed?

[mspohr]

Sometimes you need permanent classrooms. Sometimes you need temporary classrooms.
School populations grow and decrease due to lots of factors (economy, jobs, local growth, etc.).
If there is a good forecast for a permanent (10-20 year) increase in population, you build permanent classrooms. If not, temporary classrooms are a better solution... but the point of this article is that you need to have good environmental quality temporary classrooms, not the trailer trash which is currently in use.

Re:Flawed?

[sumdumass]

One of the problems with additions is similar to these trailers.

As demographics shift, you might need more room for 3-5 years then it could be too much space then need it again a decaid later. What ends up happening is that maintinence costs stay the same but the money comming in changes with the number of students and more gets allocated to yhe infrastructure instead of teaching.

Of course this could be aleviated if infrastucture costs came from a separate funding source or they could lease out the unused portions.

Re:Flawed?

[MightyYar]

At a certain size schools become too big anyway. Plans for expansion probably don't need to go beyond 2000 students or so - at that point you are better off with an additional facility. I've seen papers where the optimal size of a school is somewhere between 600-900 students with a non-linear dropoff in student performance at either end.

Re:Flawed?

[Anonymous Coward]

600-900 is good for high schools, where some scale is needed to offer a range of specialized courses.

For elementary schools, 600-900 is far too large. I would think that the optimal elementary school would be 200-300, about 20 kids per class, with everyone living within walking distance (excepting rural schools). Today my kids only have a choice of elementary schools of 600 - 1200, walking to school is uncommon and they clearly don't scale well socially.

My own experience across about 6 schools was that school quality was inversely correlated with size. The best school I attended by far was in Toronto with 94 students. The classes were split, but teachers, parents and students loved that school.

Re:Flawed?

[MightyYar]

Well, sort-of. A modular is not necessarily meant to be temporary or portable once in place. Modulars tend to be cheaper than similar in-place construction because they are assembled in a factory and benefit from economies of scale, though then you have to transport them.

Re:Flawed?

[MightyYar]

Yes, I believe that study was for high schools.

I went to a K-8 with a total of about 80 students and received an excellent education, especially given that it was a public school. That said, the social shock was a bit much when I went to the regional high school.

My kids currently attend a K-4 with perhaps 400 students. I'd say that is about the limit. Sometimes even a little too big, as some grade end up splitting into 4 classes to keep the per-class size low.

You are right about the walking. It's amazing how many of the "walking" parents are involved compared to the bussed students. I think it is because we all see each other every morning so it is easy to recruit each other. Unfortunately it is probably economic as well - the property values are probably higher in the neighborhood around the school, so walking might be kind of an elitist thing.

Re:Flawed?

[PrimaryConsult]

Longer days but fewer of them may work for some occupations, but my guess is that the current length of the day is designed for the child's learning capacity and ability to retain information that is given to them in faster, larger quantities.

I had suggested a longer school year as another alternative. Longer days would be more for high school level - I can see that being a disaster at earlier grades, unless nap time was included. High schoolers often work a part time job after school anyway; this would open up the possibility of them taking a weekday shift in place of random 2 hour blocks throughout the week. Same amount of school and work happening, just shuffled more efficiently.

The other consideration is who is going to teach longer school days and more of them? Most teachers are overworked, underpaid, and underfunded for what all they do. And you'd want them to work longer days in the classroom? And give up a weekend day?

They aren't giving up a "weekend" day: there would be the same number of teacher shifts as student shifts, so they will also have 4 day weeks. Basically the point is to get 1/3 more usage out of the same building, facilities, etc. You still need to have 1/3 more staff to handle the 1/3 more students.

As for who would do it? I know / knew many teachers who have / had an hour commute each way. They certainly would benefit from a shorter week. And again, this is why I said to only implement it in a *handful* of schools - for those that it would work for, they will have the option, and if the popularity of 4 day work weeks outside the education sector is any indication, you would have to beat them away with a stick.

I don't think you'll have any trouble staffing a school with such an arrangement, or getting students willing to try it. The hardest part would be parent buy-in (those who don't trust their teenager home alone all day in the middle of the week). This arrangement does not lend itself to helecopter parenting.

Re:Flawed?

[jellomizer]

That doesn't help if your Starter Home costs 50-100k more then it does 20 miles away. Or the community has knocked down all the starting homes as they are lowering property values.
It isn't about getting a fancy home when your are young, but getting a decent one.
Now if more people move away from the good school areas when their kids leave, vs using their new found extra income to convert their modest home into a more luxurious home, that means the next generation who has kids can move into the area and get a nice starting home to build their family with.

Re:Flawed?

[Ichijo]

Many cities have erected barriers to affordable housing under the guise of maintaining property values. So when young families cannot afford to live in established neighborhoods, that's by design.

Re:Flawed?

[lgw]

Well, I expect the change was more due to a gradual reduction in the absurd governmental corruption in the cities around Silly Valley (I'm assuming you're talking about Hayward or Fremont or Milpitas). I had gotten so bad that basics like street lights and road repairs just weren't happening. But there was a noticeable (to me, anyhow) change a couple years ago, and the cities really seems to start doing their jobs again. Not sure if that extends to the school district, but clearly the budget crunch started shining light on just how little of local government funding was actually going to something useful. If only the county would have a similar change (but Alameda county will likely have to go through bankruptcy first).

Re:Flawed?

[bill_mcgonigle]

Yeah, but then you would have to pay for them, and residents get resentful at the idea of schools having nice things. How can they afford the latest gadgets and vacations if schools are teaching children with their money?

I'm thinking of a school that spent a tremendous amount of money outfitting every classroom with smartboards that are almost always used as $500 projectors, when that money could have been used to build a new building to replace the trailers they have.

They need a smart Board, not smartboards.

Re:Flawed?

[Darinbob]

Budgets are a complicated thing and this is where it all gets messed up. School income is very low to start with so there really is not enough money to go around to all the parts that need some. Then you tack on a school board that very often does exactly what the superintendent asks them to do. Principals usually make far far less than what you describe, although school administrator salaries can be pretty high (many principals started their career as actual teachers, many even double as part time teacher/principal). A key is to get people on the board who are going to hold the system accountable, who put the students as the most important thing in the system, and who utterly reject politics. Problem is that people who don't like politics usually don't want to run for office.

Re:Flawed?

[Darinbob]

My father was a teacher, and I noticed recently that there are still "temporary" classrooms where he taught that have been there at least twenty years. Granted they're not exactly trailers and more like prefab homes. Eventually there was a new school (6th grade only middle school) but that doesn't mean the temporary rooms have become unnecessary. Population doubles but the budget has not doubled to match.

Re:Flawed?

[Darinbob]

I think often they assume that a new school will be built as the town expands. However as time goes on the political desire to do so vanishes plus the money needed for a new school is not available. Ie in California we have this nasty thing called proposition 13 which utterly gutted local property tax revenues, which were the primary funding source for schools. Schools ran on a shoestring budget even before this happened, and were seriously in trouble afterwords. Then as the population grows it was generally from lower income people except in some key areas, so larger populations but without a larger school budget to compensate. And that's all assuming a well run and nonpolitical budget process.

Right now the emphasis is on smaller classrooms and good teachers, which means issues about temporary classrooms has not been on the radar at all. On the contrary the temporary classrooms were seen as the economical solution to get the good results that everyone is asking for.

Re:Flawed?

[cthulhu11]

So instead of selling off school buildings to be made into condos, we should actually use them as schools? What a concept!

Re:Flawed?

[david_thornley]

The real problem with what you say about population movement is that the school district has no control over it. (There may be people who have influence both on the school board and the city or county government, but that's not the same thing.) You seem to think that parents should live where the existing schools are, but I'd think it more reasonable to expect the schools to cater to where the parents (and children) live.

Re:Flawed?

[david_thornley]

Thing is, there are X number of children of Y age in a neighborhood, and this will vary depending on factors outside the control of any school. This means the appropriate number of classrooms will vary over time. This means that it's impossible for any planning process to come up with plans that don't either have a lot of wasted space at some times or serious overcrowding and/or temporary classrooms.

Note that I didn't assume public schools at any time in the last paragraph. This problem exists regardless of whether the schools are public, private, some mix, or all run by Charles Xavier. The reason it's primarily a public school problem is that private schools can put upper limits on their enrollment and enforce them, whereas the public school system really does have to give every child a shot at an education. If we had only a system of private schools, we'd have to have some way to get the surplus kids into school no matter what, and that would raise some serious questions about what we should compel private schools to do.

Re:Flawed?

[swillden]

Of course the school district has no control. I was talking about a much larger and farther-reaching societal dysfunction. Schools just have to work with what they have.

Re:Flawed?

[Uzuri]

sumdumbass, are you a central Ohioan? Because I swear that sounds like back home.

Not there any more, but I wouldn't have voted for a school levy at gunpoint in the district I was in. Worse abuse of funds ever, and everyone knew it.

In School Retention

[mdsolar]

My kids' school finally got to an enrollment where classes won't be held in trailers. But, the trailers will still be used. The school district is thinking that expulsion and suspension do more harm than good when students are left unsupervised, so they are switching to more in school retention. The trailers are going to be used for that.

Re:In School Retention

[ganjadude]

-Slashdot has the Anonymous Coward feature which means libtards can show their real racist tendencies.

the irony....

Re:In School Retention

[MitchDev]

Anyone using the term "libtard" is already displaying serious mental derangement and cannot be taken seriously anyway

Re:In School Retention

[frank_adrian314159]

The school district is thinking that expulsion and suspension do more harm than good when students are left unsupervised, so they are switching to more in school retention. The trailers are going to be used for that.

Ahhh... Getting them ready for the industrial-prison complex early, huh?

Re:In School Retention

[ganjadude]

exactly, the same holds true for "libertardian, repuglithan teabagger" and any others

If we cant discuss political issues without resorting to insults, there is no point in having said discussion because those throwing the insults clearly wont be swayed regardless

Re:In School Retention

[Darinbob]

They don't necessarily know the air is toxic. This is only new information.

Re:In School Retention

[Joey Vegetables]

I agree. It is highly insulting to people with reduced mental functioning, to compare them with leftists (of either the bolshevist or fascist variety - each sucks worse than the other), who choose not to use whatever mental faculties they have in the first place, but instead allow themselves to be ruled by emotion, and, worse, demand that all others do likewise and that the dwindling handful of responsible and productive people left in our society pay for their unsustainable foolishness. A person does not choose the intelligence he or she is born with, but DOES choose whether to use it or not.

Re:In School Retention

[MitchDev]

Or to be an evil money money money all for me screw everyone else retardpublican.

See how that works?

Re:In School Retention

[Joey Vegetables]

Except, even knowing MANY Republicans (I'm not, but most of my friends are), I've never met even a single one who wants to screw anyone else over. I've never met one who did not give either time or money to help those less fortunate than himself or herself. I've also never met one who did not believe that the best way to help the less fortunate was to empower him or her to help himself or herself. I've met a few who were racist, but most are not. (Many are anti-Islam, but not necessarily anti-Muslim.) The stereotypes of "eeeevil Republicans" simply do not match my experience. The self-professed "liberals" I know however . . . and I can count them on the fingers of both hands . . . are, to a fault, either malevolent, or willfully ignorant. Usually both. They may have deluded themselves into thinking that the welfare state, public indoctrination, forced vaccination, wage floors, "Social Services," etc. truly help the needy, and that by supporting these things they are helping them. But, to the very last, each of them is smart and informed enough to know that they are all pure bullshit. They, unlike my more conservative friends, simply have found a way to rationalize their unwillingness to give a flying fuck about anyone besides themselves and those around them and those sufficiently like them. Yet, even while denying this huge fault in themselves, they project it onto their opponents. We, the non-Bolshevists of the world, are the ones who are greedy and cruel and heartless for wanting a world in which as many people as possible can prosper. Not them, for wanting a world in which they and the rest of their privileged few can control everyone else by selectively granting or withholding the stolen largesse of others. Fuck them, and if you are going to defend them, then fuck you too.

Re:In School Retention

[david_thornley]

Leftists of the fascist variety? Methinks you misunderstand the left, fascism, or both.

Re:In School Retention

[Joey Vegetables]

No, I think you misunderstand. Fascism is nationalistic socialism. Bolshevism is internationalist socialism. Stalin and Hitler, in spite of differing ideologies and opposition to one another, prove to be very much similar in terms of their authoritarianism as well as their body counts. As I said, each sucks more than the other.

Re:In School Retention

[MitchDev]

Ah yes, "We don;t want to screw others!" yet you don't want to pay taxes and contribute to the society that makes your wealth possible.
You play games with people's livelihoods, shipping jobs overseas to increase your own profits, boosting your profits by not providing medical coverage to your workers or using the it as an excuse to go down to mostly part-time employees.
And when those affected by your greed need help, you paint them all as lazy and worthless while doing everything in your power to keep them impoverished and unemployed.
Yes, there are welfare leeches and they needs to be scoured from the face of the earth, but to spout the nonsense that you aren't greedy and have only osociety's interests at heart is so much bullshit.

Re:In School Retention

[david_thornley]

It's immediately apparent that you and I know completely distinct groups of liberals, with no overlap.

You know, I have a friend in South Dakota whose wife is an Episcopal priest. He is interested in the reservation missions, and the extreme poverty thereon. It seems very odd to me that giving money to the poor would always be a bad idea, because it's really hard to start in poverty like that and succeed later in life (I have met one exception, but I'm pretty sure he's an exception). I kicked in some money as a donation, but it's really, really easy for people to not contribute to causes and people they don't know about.

BTW, the minimum wage can help the working poor, depending on the demand curve for low-end labor. It appears to be less elastic than you might think. (Having external constraints on your negotiation can help you rather than hinder, something I read in a book that was written from a Republican point of view.) Requiring vaccinations is a method of keeping people healthy in general, much like sanitation requirements. (It was improved sanitation, not advances in medicine, that turned large cities from population sinks to places that could more than sustain their own population.)

We do seem to agree in wanting a world where people can prosper. We differ on the means.

Re:In School Retention

[david_thornley]

They were very similar in their authoritarianism, which is a form of government. They were seriously different in their economic systems, as well as things like nationalism vs. internationalism, the role of religion, and respect for tradition. Overall, Communists are much more similar to leftists, and you will find deluded leftists supporting it. Fascists are much more similar to rightists, and you will find deluded rightists supporting it.

Terrible ventilation v. heat exhaustion

[JJJJust]

When I was in high school and they were adding on and renovating, everybody wanted as many classes in the portables as possible because they had air conditioning and our 50 year old school building didn't.

I'm sure more was learned in them than could have been learned in a 90 degree classroom.

Re:Terrible ventilation v. heat exhaustion

[Anonymous Coward]

That was the case in my high school as well. No air conditioning - 90+ degrees and 100% humidity, with the stench from the sewage treatment plant across the street wafting in through the open windows. It was awful. The portable classrooms were air conditioned and were much better than the main building.

The same year a nearby state prison was closed because it wasn't air conditioned.

Re:Terrible ventilation v. heat exhaustion

[LWATCDR]

It was that way at one of the elementary schools when I was growing up. Most of the schools did not have the "problem" because they had extra class rooms because of end of segregation. They made elementary 1-5, "kindergarten was added a few years latter." Sixth grade was moved to the black elementary school and seventh grade to the black high school.

My elementary school had no AC until I was in 5th grade. It was supposed to but they didn't want to spend the money at the time. The joys of first grade in south florida in a school with no AC and windows facing north south when the wind is east west. The good part was the south side of the building had few windows and a large overhang.

Oxymoron

[Calydor]

Sustainable but temporary. Maybe it's just because English isn't my first language but I really fail to see how you can have both; or why you would WANT both.

Re:Oxymoron

[MightyYar]

It's only absurd if you consider it to be a closed system. If the trailers are portable, then they can be reused at another site once construction is complete. Temporary, reusable trailers can be better for the environment than other alternatives:
- Refurbishing an older building for temporary use.
- Building non-mobile temporary structure.
- Clearing a vacant spot of land for the new structure.

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.

Re:Oxymoron

[king neckbeard]

They want an environmentally/economically sustainable way of having temporary classrooms when they need them. A similar example would be disposable cutlery. Petroleum based plastic cups are intended to be temporary, but they are not sustainable because they deplete natural resources and do not biodegrade. By contrast, there are now cups that fit that role made from plant products, but will break down after a month or two of environmental exposure. These cups are intended to be temporarily used, but their design is at least intended to be sustainable.

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.

Re:Oxymoron

[MightyYar]

I obviously cannot argue that the permanent use of temporary systems is good practice.

Re:Oxymoron

[aaarrrgggh]

Because a classroom is unlikely to be utilized at capacity for its 50-year lifespan given fluctuating enrollment.

New subdivision built in year 1, year 4-5 the elementary school in the neighborhood has an enrollment boom, then a bust around year 10-14. The next boom isn't likely until the first families in the development move on and new young couples move in and have kids, which is likely around year 25. So, a trailer that is installed in anticipation of the boom can be demolished during the bust at the end of its life, and a new trailer can be provided for the next boom. Very efficient.

Unfortunately, the problem is that the trailers are never removed, and what was intended to be temporary becomes permanent.

Further exacerbating the problem is the fact that it is hard for schools to get money (because they often spend it poorly).

Re:Oxymoron

[aaarrrgggh]

The schools should be designed in a modular fashion that accommodates growth in 25%-35% increments. Unfortunately, that makes your first increment cost 30-50% more and doesn't save much in the future phases.

Re:Oxymoron

[CanHasDIY]

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.

.. Or the portables are intended to serve a different, specific purpose. Do you know which classes are held in them?

When they started putting mobiles in the school lots back home, I got suspicious. When they moved all the LD and "bad kid" classes into them, I had my suspicions confirmed - the portables exist to segregate groups of "undesirables" from the rest of the student body, likely to limit their influence both on attitudes and government-mandated test scores on which funding is based.

They even have their own buses; it's like 2 different schools sharing one parcel of land.

Re:Oxymoron

[petermgreen]

There is also the question of what will your district look like in a decade or so? will it still be full of families with school-age children? or will it be full of older people whose kids have moved on to a new area?

Re:Oxymoron

[phantomfive]

If you live in California, then it has nothing to do with the school board. A few years ago a company that makes portable buildings lobbied the governor for a requirement that all schools should have at least a few portable classrooms.

So you can thank Gray Davis for that. I'm sure similar things have been attempted in other states.

Re:Oxymoron

[larryjoe]

This is an example of correlation not necessarily indicating causation. There's nothing inherently wrong with a temporary structure. Does the fact that some temporary structure have bad ventilation mean that all temporary structures have bad ventilation? If you take the same temporary structure and move it to a rich neighborhood, do the rich kids have similar levels of absenteeism?

Of course, a poorly designed or erected temporary structure is bad, just as a poorly designed or erected permanent structure is bad. However, the underlying problem is funding (and the associated problems arising from neighborhoods with less educated and poorer parents).

Re:Oxymoron

[MightyYar]

However, the underlying problem is funding (and the associated problems arising from neighborhoods with less educated and poorer parents).

I used to think that funding was the problem, but then I looked at some data and found two surprising things:
- Per student funding in the US has steadily increased in real dollars.
- Funding has steadily transitioned from being almost entirely local to less than half local.
- Funding per student in the US for primary education is either highest or among the highest in the world.

So schools are getting more money than ever and they are being funded less by local taxes than ever, and yet... here we are. I now look in other places for answers, because funding ain't it.

Re:Oxymoron

[Uberbah]

Or school boards are so under funded, they start off designing a school they know will be outgrown before its even open.

Low taxes have high costs.

Re:Oxymoron

[david_thornley]

Or the school district is going through what clearly will be a temporary bump in student population, and the school board doesn't want to spend the money to create more permanent facilities than they're likely to need in three years. (If the portables are there long-term, then this is likely not the reason.)

Global warming is causing bad grades now

[NotDrWho]

KATIE CAMPBELL: Other studies show that, as CO2 levels rise, student performance falls.

Yes, that is an honest-to-god quote from this report. No joke.

Re:Global warming is causing bad grades now

[impossiblefork]

No, it's actually quite right.

Just yesterday I happened upon a presentation by a company called Swegon, which designs and manufactures ventillation system equipment, in which they showed a material from a British researcher who (I believe on their proposal) had arranged measurements of student performance as a function of class CO2 levels and classroom temperature and the effect on the speed with which students performed diverse simple tasks, like adding numbers, multiplication, etc. and overall it turned out to drop by 30% as CO2 reached the worst levels.

In some schools the CO2 levels reached about 2000 ppm. The idea that this doesn't affect people is ridiculous and properly designed ventillation systems are important.

Re:Global warming is causing bad grades now

[NotDrWho]

The statement is clearly meant to strongly imply causation, NOT just correlation. She wasn't just making some random observation like "Did you know that student performance has inversely correlated with the rise of Sour Cream sales in the U.S.? Crazy, huh? Of course, the two things have nothing to do with one another, I just thought it was funny to point out."

Re:Global warming is causing bad grades now

[timeOday]

Would it sound less weird if they said, Studies Show Glucose and Oxygen Help Brain? Your brain (like the rest of your body) is a chemical reactor and needs fuel - that is glucose + oxygen. You can't just breathe the same air over and over all day.

I doubt anybody (but you) linked it to global warming. Am I right?

Re:Global warming is causing bad grades now

[Virtucon]

I think it's along the lines of "if my girlfriend is menstruating, I don't get sex."

Re:Global warming is causing bad grades now

[Waffle Iron]

You do realize that they're talking about indoor CO2 levels that are far in excess of the overall atmospheric levels related to global warming?

Moreover, they do not imply that the CO2 itself causes poor performance. It's clear that they're using it as a *measure* of poor ventilation, which is correlated with bad grades.

Maybe it was a little stuffy in the school where you were learning analytic reading skills.

Re:Global warming is causing bad grades now

[NotDrWho]

If they're not "implying that the CO2 itself causes poor performance" and it's just about measuring poor ventilation, then why are they using rising CO2 as the gauge instead of the much more relevant declining O2 levels?

Re:Global warming is causing bad grades now

[blue trane]

Air is just air, right, CO2 in classrooms is just as good as fresh air.

Re:Global warming is causing bad grades now

[NotDrWho]

You are aware that "fresh air" has CO2 in it, right? And be very grateful that it does.

Re:Global warming is causing bad grades now

[compro01]

KATIE CAMPBELL: Other studies show that, as CO2 levels rise, student performance falls.

Yes, that is an honest-to-god quote from this report. No joke.

Yes. Hypercapnia can affect mental function and some of the levels they measured are high enough to be symptomatic.

It's not "Wharrgarbl global warming!", it's "The ventilation in these schools is so shitty that students are suffering CO2 poisoning!".

Re:Global warming is causing bad grades now

[NotDrWho]

And my guess is that you're a idiot.

Re:Global warming is causing bad grades now

[compro01]

Moreover, they do not imply that the CO2 itself causes poor performance.

Actually, some of the levels they measured are high enough for that to be plausible.

Re:Global warming is causing bad grades now

[Mr. Slippery]

then why are they using rising CO2 as the gauge instead of the much more relevant declining O2 levels?

Your body measures CO2 levels, not O2 levels, to know when to breathe. Your brain will go into full scale psychedelic freakout mode if CO2 levels are high even in there's plenty of O2. CO2 is incredibly relevant.

Re:Global warming is causing bad grades now

[drinkypoo]

Yes, that is an honest-to-god quote from this report. No joke.

You know, relatively small shifts in CO2 percentage do cause shifts in attitude and attention. And guess what? We were at 400 ppm all over the globe just a few days ago, when we should be below 350. Suckit.

Re:Global warming is causing bad grades now

[Waffle Iron]

Because CO2 is present in parts per million, whereas oxygen is around 20%. If amount of CO2 increases by a few hundred percent, the amount of oxygen drops by a small fraction of 1%. It is much easier and more accurate to measure the difference in CO2 concentrations than that of O2.

Perhaps you shouldn't be throwing barbs about global warming if this middle-school-level science wasn't already obvious to you.

Re:Global warming is causing bad grades now

[phantomfive]

The amount of CO2 in a closed room is measured in percentages, whereas the amount of CO2 in the outside atmosphere is measured in PPM. They aren't talking about AGW here.

Re:Global warming is causing bad grades now

[impossiblefork]

Yes. Performance was also degraded as classroom temperatures reached 30 degrees Celsius. I didn't listen to the full presentation, although there probably wasn't enough in it to ascertain whether they had succeded in separating the effect of CO2 and temperature, but it probably wasn't treated, as the presentation was intended for people who designed ventillation systems.

Re:Global warming is causing bad grades now

[spitzak]

I suspect the CO2 level in the room you are in is a bit too high if you are so mentally impaired to think this has something to do with global warming.

Re:Global warming is causing bad grades now

[Joey Vegetables]

Would mod up, but already commented. Question: at least in reasonable climates, it should be very easy to improve ventilation by adding that latest of late high-tech wonders: a fan. Costs a few bucks, will greatly improve results and may even save lives. Why wouldn't they do that?? I realize it might cost more during extreme weather, but if airflow is as bad as the article suggests, IMO, it should be done anyway, to maintain airflow comparable to what would be expected in any other indoor structure, bad weather or not.

Re:Whats teh difference

[MightyYar]

I know that I have chosen to throw $25k down the toilet each year in the hopes that my kids will someday become a Slashdot troll.

Good times, good times

[Xacid]

Strangely, the classes I remember the most were in those trailers. Those teachers seemed to have a lot more autonomy and utilized it. "The whole class is looking tired - let's go for a walk around the trailers to get some fresh air while I continue the discussion." It's also plausible that it's entirely psychological in that I only remember them more because it was that different of an environment. I do seem to recall, however, the teachers who had those wanted to be out there and made the most of it.

As for the air quality - I know this isnt practical for all climates but we often simply...left the doors open and enjoyed the weather. I wonder if doing that periodically solves this whole "toxic air" problem.

Contradictory

[countach]

Energy efficiency and good ventilation are pretty much two concepts at odds. Preventing air circulation with the outside combined with insulation is one of the two most important ways to make a building energy efficient. The other important method is thermal mass. i.e having the building full of concrete and brick, which is also at odds with temporary structures. If you have enough thermal mass, you can afford a bit more ventilation without losing all the heat instantly.

So as far as I see, this is pie in the sky. You'll have to build it permanent. If its there for decades, is it really temporary anyway?

Re:Contradictory

[Virtucon]

Or how about the fact that parents send their kids to school sick vs. losing a day of wages or worse yet spending for a doctor to get the kid better? Schools are petri dishes for everything and anything. There are however air to air heat exchangers that can minimize energy loss and provide enough fresh air. The problem with those is cost. Meh, maybe they should just open up a window once in awhile.

Re:Contradictory

[Bob the Super Hamste]

maybe they should just open up a window once in awhile

It probably isn't allowed. In my high school there was too much fear of someone taking a dive out of a 4th floor window so they all had to be kept shut. Made for some very unpleasant days since the building was old enough to not have AC in it and it wasn't uncommon for highs to reach into the 90s with dew points in the70s. To make matters worse the heating system was done with a boiler and radiators so there wasn't a proper ventilation system to move the air.

Re:Contradictory

[david_thornley]

Yup. Currently, far too many people can't stay home with their sickness or their child's sickness, so they infect other people. Also, far too many people don't have affordable health care. Fixing those would improve public health considerably.

And there are times when opening the window (when possible) is an excellent idea. There are times when it isn't, and places where it isn't possible. The latter is quite likely bad planning, but, when faced with a badly ventilated classroom, it's awkward to have to go back in time, sneak into the architect's office, and change the plans to include openable windows.

Yey democracy

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Here's a solution: permanent manufactured modular housing -- construction quality (or better), not a mobile home, and cranked out cheaply at a factory.

You'll have to overturn several legal regimes protecting their domains, like building inspectors, housng regulations, and a million construction workers voting for politicians who keep the status quo.

Ahhh, forget it. "Freedom" hasn't swept it aside in five decades, why should "environmentalism", "for the children", or some other meme succeed?

Did we check for confounding variables?

[roystgnr]

Or is there really nothing other than CO2 levels which correlates strongly with the use of portable classrooms and with absenteeism? Perhaps low socioeconomic status has nothing to do with which school districts have more trouble affording permanent buildings? Perhaps higher numbers of children per family are unrelated to which schools are overcrowded?

It's hard to tell, when the bibliography consists of "studies show".

What's sad is that this is still better-than-average science and science reporting. We got an actual transcript, and the correlation seems to be at least a step above the "people who wear parachutes are more likely to die in skydiving accidents!" level which is so good at grabbing headlines.

Re:Did we check for confounding variables?

[Virtucon]

naw, just blame the formaldehyde. What do you expect from all of these retarded "studies" nowadays with per-conceived, sponsored "facts?"

Re:Did we check for confounding variables?

[NotDrWho]

This report openly acknowledges that it was sponsored by an organization called "EarthFix." Care to guess how fair and balanced they are?

Re:Did we check for confounding variables?

[Virtucon]

Well I guess I'm a Carlinite on that because the Earth's fine, the people are fucked.

waste

[Charliemopps]

I'll never understand this. In my city there are at LEAST 4 abandon super markets. There are many other abandon commercial spaces. In one grocery store they abandon, they actually built new businesses in the parking lot, feet away from the front door, making the building totally unusable. These are not run down, older buildings infested with rats. In many cases they are less than 20yrs old!

When this country was founded, government functions were held in local business buildings. Often older buildings were taken over by the city government for use rather than let them turn to blight. Why aren't we doing this now? I could WALK to a 50,000sq/ft building that's been abandon for over 5yrs from where I'm sitting right now. The primary function of city government is zoning. If there is an abandon commercial building they should tell the owner to either develop it, tare it down and turn it residential or sell it to the city to be used for things like emergency classrooms.

Re:waste

[LWATCDR]

Our school board is in an old mall so it still is done.
For a School it is harder to do that? Where do you put the play ground?

Re:waste

[PPH]

Where do you put the play ground?

Parking lot.

Re:waste

[Joel Cahoon]

I'll never understand this.

Why aren't we doing this now?

they should

You make some excellent points. Have you brought them to the attention of others in your community, and to your city/county/state government? Change doesn't magically happen. Don't be an armchair politician and then complain when things don't happen the way you think they should. Get involved!

Re:waste

[Overzeetop]

I'm in the industry, and your idea actually does have merit. Even ignoring the red tape, like zoning, the building code requirements for commercial buildings is lower than for schools, so some simply are not acceptable for school use. Those that are will require extensive upfit to work for classrooms and educational spaces - it's not uncommon for the finishing of a commercial space to be 75% or more of the cost of the building (as compared to the "shell") and that doesn't include the need to strip the inside of the building even before the renovation starts. And schools are all-or-nothing; it's very hard to have some classrooms on a remote campus which is more than 5-10 minutes from the main school. Which means you need a gym, locker rooms, and cafeteria space in addition to classrooms (at a minimum).

The other problem is ownership. Many of the owners of those buildings (at least in my town), seem to think they're absolute castles of perfection. They'll never sell them below a "market" value, and that value would anticipate a profitable commercial establishment using it to generate revenue. The city can't just take over the buildings, because somebody owns them. You can't simply change the zoning of an area, and in many places changing the zoning of a specific plot of land is illegal (called "spot zoning"). They can make the owner fix it up or tear it down if it becomes a hazard, but you can imagine how helpful that owner is going to want to be if the same city that just told him he needs to invest several hundred thousand dollars turns around and wants to buy it from him or lease space.

Re:waste

[Charliemopps]

Yea, I'm not very familiar with all the pertinent laws. I have been on the receiving end of the city changing zoning and kicking me off my land though. We lost our family farm because the city wanted to develop the area. It was strait forward "You're moving" They offered my father a pretty poor deal... he turned it down... they offered him even less... he turned it down... then they used eminent domain. This was decades ago though, things may have changed.

In regards to the building regulations... relax them. How dangerous are temporary trailers? Don't kids go to the supermarket? I've never liked regulations for this very reason. They're inflexible and often make little sense. "We're afraid the old mall might have lead paint, so rather than test it we're going to put all the kids in "PODS" containers we've rented out back with no aircon for the next 10yrs while we keep telling you we have plans to build a new facility but really we're just waiting for the expected population to decrease in 2020"

Re:waste

[Charliemopps]

Our school board is in an old mall so it still is done.
For a School it is harder to do that? Where do you put the play ground?

Don't. Gym shouldn't be part of school.

ok, ok, that's a different argument. Let's see... an abandon JC Penny would make a great gym. Turn on the escalator and have the kids walk up a never ending staircase!

Re:waste

[LWATCDR]

I said playground. You know where you went outside and had recess and you played four-square "not the app", or tetherball, or tag, or soccer, or catch... You know a playground.
 

Re:What?

[jabuzz]

You need temporary classrooms because something is going on in the school that puts existing permanent classrooms out of action for a "short" period. That might be for example refurbishment of an existing classrooms or even something far more dramatic such as a fire. In these scenarios the construction of permanent classrooms would be stupid.

Misstated

[argStyopa]

No, what's needed is an infinite supply of money, of course. Now, if you don't have a handy Leprechaun or fairy dust, then I guess you're screwed.

Too many internet stories (commentaries, blogs, whatever) fail to comprehend what in negotiations is called BATNA - essentially, what's the real alternative?

The reason we USE temporary classrooms is because we're stuck with the realities of too many kids, short budgets, poor planning, construction schedules, or a combination of the above.

Making temporary structures more expensive - ie, something better than shoddy little temporary structures - means more cost, meaning less classrooms, meaning in reality such a thing would result in more crowded permanent classrooms. Is that better or worse than some special snowflakes getting the sniffles a little? (I genuinely don't know, maybe it is. I was supposed to be in a temporary trailer-office for 3-4 months, it ended up being 26. I know how they suck.)

Re:Misstated

[blue trane]

Money is kept artificially scarce. Shadow banks create hundreds of trillions of dollars.

  But the real solution is online education.

Re:Misstated

[PPH]

No, what's needed is an infinite supply of money, of course.

This study was done in Washington State. Now I don't know about the rest of the state, but in Seattle, the school district (and its funds) are being pulled in a number of directions, none of which are economicaly optimal.

First, there's the neighborhood school interests. In the past, many small schools were constructed to put them in all the neighborhoods. But economics (and common sense) dictates that consolidating these into fewer, larger buildings is the way to go. Now, try fighting that battle with all of the parents' groups when they learn that their local school will be shut down.

And then there's the historical monument group. Many of Seattle's older schools are brick buildings. In an earthquake zone. Seismic refitting is very expensive, often much more than calling in the bulldozer and building new to code. But both the neighborhood school interest groups and the historical building preservation groups push money into maintaining these crumbling relics.

Re:Misstated

[argStyopa]

Maybe. But then again, I'm curious why you'd believe that administrators that are demonstrably incompetent with the dollars they're given today would be more responsible if given more money?

I'm pretty sure Mark Zuckerberg just threw $100 MILLION at the NJ schools and it didn't do shit?

Minneapolis public schools - last time I checked - were eating $12000/student/year.
So a classroom of 25 kids has over a quarter million dollars per year.
Even handing HALF of that to a teacher, and paying high-end office-space lease rates for that 900sq ft room means those 26 kids have $130k every year to use to learn. Does each classroom really consume $130,000 annual learning materials? Of course not....schools, their stultifying teachers' unions, and inept bureaucracies are cesspools of waste. But it can never be roto-rooter'd out because anyone suggesting so is attacked because "children!!".

He was a largely a buffoon as governor, but I applauded with delight when I heard Jesse Ventura being attacked by the head of the state teacher's union on a 'fireside chat' sort of program for his lack of support for more school funding. He stopped the teacher, and said (something like) "How much do you want? You keep insisting you need more money, more money, more money...every year. It's never enough. I'll tell you what: you tell me an actual amount, and I'll sign the check, if you guarantee reasonable results. 90% of kids graduating able to read, write, and do math at 12th grade level. If you have to hold 'em back, that's fine too. Just so graduates hit those numbers. Any amount you name, I'll pay it. The other side of the agreement is that if you don't, I get to fire you ALL, disband the union, and hire people that are competent. Deal?"
Of course, that was unacceptable.

Re:Misstated

[david_thornley]

Online education is wonderful for many purposes. I doubt it's ever going to replace the elementary school.

What's needed is more math in zoning/building

[kick6]

I don't know if this is the same for the rest of the country, but in Texas public schools seemed to be created for the CURRENT overflow in existing schools. Of note that, especially in the Houston area, residence creation is still blowing and going.

So what results is a school is planned to be built for the, say, 3000 student overflow in surrounding schools. Then 4 years later when the doors open...there's 6000 kids going to that school necessitating temporary buildings from day one. Someone needs to hire a damn mathematician to, oh I don't know, trend the population growth or some fancy-pantsy thing?

Re:What's needed is more math in zoning/building

[Overzeetop]

But nobody wants to pay for it. Have you heard the banshee cries of builders when the city/county suggests a tariff on each new residence to cover the cost of a new school? You'd think they were going to cut off his dick and feed it to the hounds. But it's the new housing that brings the students and requires the expansion. It's rare that a place with no new houses has any meaningful increase in student population.

Howard County, Maryland does it right by putting caps on new residences at 105% of the school capacity (to allow for some flexibility). Once that cap is hit, no more building permits are issued until the school capacity is increased. Then, all of a sudden, it's in the builders' interests to find a way to get the money and land to build new facilities, no different than roads and sewers, and they seem to find the money and agree on a fee structure to pay for the new schools. But Texas will never do that, because it's anti-business.

Funding for Better Buildings?

[Striikerr]

I have never understood the mentality of throwing out these portables for students to use as a classroom. I see many schools here in South Florida using these portables as a permanent solution to inadequate classrooms. Before anyone says "but the school system can't afford to build new ones" keep in mind that in Florida, the lottery proceedings which the state takes in are supposed to go towards the school system. If the government would properly fund school sour of the normal budget and then allocate lottery revenue AFTER instead of including it as a part of meeting the budget (thus allocating the other funds elsewhere). If the school system actually got the lottery revenue after the base budgets were met, the school system would be a lot better off and these portables would not be a permanent structure.

Re:Funding for Better Buildings?

[Overzeetop]

The lottery proceeds doesn't even dent the school budget, and with the remainder coming from the legislature it's really just a balancing act. With revenue growing slower than educational costs, the leg can still put more money into the system every year (so it doesn't look like they're using the lotto money to shore up the general fund) and still have the whole thing lose ground to educational inflation. And there's no way they would put that money on top of a "fully funded" school (ha!).

They use these because they're dirt cheap compared to building an entirely new school or renovating an old one. Schools are very expensive, mainly because parents want something prettier than is necessary, and architects like to spend money to create their "signature" look. Couple that with contractors who know what the budget for the school is and will either not bid (if it's too low) or "match the budget" if it's got a nice profit in it for them, and you have a recipe for the $200+/sf educational building of today.

Re:What?

[petermgreen]

And you also need them because sometimes your demographic predictions say that a local increase in the number of schoolkids is temporary, or because your demographic predictions were wrong and you need to add capacity quickly.

Re:Whats teh difference

[Anonymous Coward]

What alternatives to a lot of parents have? Private schools can be in excess of $100,000 a year. Home schooling means that one parent has to take time and be a hausfrau/hausmann, and make sure the kids have the Common Core books. Even churches are still expensive often-times.

The only time I've seen a functioning school recently that wasn't a private school... was behind the scenes at a renaissance faire. On weekends, the family worked, but weekdays were wide open. During the weekdays, the parents, usually college grads [1] would trade off teaching under a pavilion tent [2], or one of the on site buildings.

The result were kids who got a GED and a high school equivalency, and went from the faire circuit to decent universities with far better social skills [3] than most public school victims, er students.

[1]: College doesn't get you a job these days, you have to have some experience, be it an internship, or certificates. The only exception are law degrees.

[2]: Ventilation? No problem.

[3]: At the minimum, they know how to handle belligerent drunks quite well.

So which is worse?

[unixcorn]

Putting your kids in a roomy portable classroom with questionable ventilation or crowding them into a permanent classroom like commuters on an airplane? As someone on a school board, I can tell you that the community doesn't like portables, but they like approving bonds to build new schools that are underutilized even less.

About Time This Was Exposed

[unixcorn]

"Educators are in it for the money a lot of them."
Do you work? Do you work for free? Are you in it for the money? Why do you think principals and superintendents make what they do? Could it be that they spent 8 years in college to get their doctorate, probably at night, while making it on a teachers pay. Along they way they were probably great teachers, were good with parents and they know what it takes to do their job. So one person makes $250K in the district while some principals make six figures, you can be sure they earn it. The superintendent's position is 24/7 and principals aren't far behind. Administrators, unlike teachers work all year too, by the way. Maybe you should spend some time at your school of choice and get the real scoop before going off on a rampage about how others make too much money.

The wealthy olds

[ThatsNotPudding]

Funny thing about wealth: it accumulates as you age - usually well past the age you still have kids and possibly even grandkids in primary school. This assumes that any of them even _went_ to mere public schools in the first place. But the one-percenters and the upper-upper middle class are the first to complain endlessly about property taxes being too high: the very people who _won't_ be directly affected by shitty schools are the chief architects of their demise.

Zero Tolerance

[mdsolar]

The district has some zero tolerance policies, no weapons for example. Sending kids home to an empty house may not get the behavioral issue addressed.

And my old former junior high/middle school ...

[antdude]

... still seems to use them as of last night after 8 PM PDT. :P

Re:Whats teh difference

[Darinbob]

Because there's little alternative. Private schools are extremely expensive (and those also get "temporary" classrooms sometimes), and home teaching is impractical to most and parents aren't properly trained for it. Better to fix the public schools than to abandon them as a hopeless cause.

Fabian Where Art Thou?

[JimSadler]

Anyone thinking that major school systems are unaware that they are purchasing sub standard portable buildings needs to rethink the issue. Usually the larger school systems know full well when the are buying junk. After all school boards employ all buildings trades people and have decades of experience. If the more civilian type of board members vote they may well be in the dark over trades issues. South Florida, a frequent hurricane target, has had portable class rooms completely fall apart that were only a year or so old when they attempted to move them a few feet. You can bet your last penny that someone in the schools system trades departments has green lighted these purchases and that they either get kick backs directly or get a plush job when they leave the school system. The size of many school systems is such that organized crime gains entry and can skim off the top without fear of punishment.

Just like software...

[edcalaban]

The good old permanent temporary solution.

Who would have thought that

[ToddInSF]

turning schools into trailer parks would not be a boon to their education ?

Re:Whats teh difference

[Mondor]

I think that's what Seth Godin said in his "Stop stealing dreams".
http://www.squidoo.com/stop-st...