Why do you care if your kid has to learn in a portable??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't care if my child is in a portable but it shows how over capacity the school is. It shows poor planning on the part of MoCo as a whole. They are resourced (admin wise) for a specific amount of children and they are obviously understaffed and it is more obvious by how much by how many portables there are.

Besides, our schools are like little cities anyway.. which I hate.

There are the rich kids with tutors in the AP/honors classes (away from the rifraf). There is the middle "class" in normal classes. So you might as well have a trail park to round out the imagery.

I agree.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't care if my child is in a portable but it shows how over capacity the school is. It shows poor planning on the part of MoCo as a whole. They are resourced (admin wise) for a specific amount of children and they are obviously understaffed and it is more obvious by how much by how many portables there are.

Besides, our schools are like little cities anyway.. which I hate.

There are the rich kids with tutors in the AP/honors classes (away from the rifraf). There is the middle "class" in normal classes. So you might as well have a trail park to round out the imagery.

Portables are a question of building capacity. They don't have anything to do with staffing.

Also, there are rich kids in portables.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't care if my child is in a portable but it shows how over capacity the school is. It shows poor planning on the part of MoCo as a whole. They are resourced (admin wise) for a specific amount of children and they are obviously understaffed and it is more obvious by how much by how many portables there are.

Besides, our schools are like little cities anyway.. which I hate.

There are the rich kids with tutors in the AP/honors classes (away from the rifraf). There is the middle "class" in normal classes. So you might as well have a trail park to round out the imagery.

Portables are a question of building capacity. They don't have anything to do with staffing.

Also, there are rich kids in portables.

They do not hire more admin staff to support the extra kids "in the school".

Imagery and reality are two different things... I get they don't put poor kids in portables ... you actually have to make a leap to inference to understand the comment.

[Anonymous]

The portables are all over our once playground blacktop. No more 4-square, basketball, no recess if it is wet outside (it used to be blacktop only play.) The lunches start at 10:30am, the school has to have 2-3 of the same assemblies to accommodate the school so authors, guest speakers etc.. usually don't happen anymore. Less time with special teachers who have to fit in more classes. Still one nurse aide for 50% more population. Same staff lounge for 50% increase in staff. 2 kids have to go to the bathroom at the same time and takes 10min (between walking, goofing off) and it always disrupts class. Not to mention putting on coats when it is 20 degrees - just to go to the bathroom!

Do the portables suck. Yes they do. They smell, some are 100m from the front door. They get colder than the school in the winter, there is safety issues with severe weather, security issues not being inside the locked school, etc...

So yes, I have a problem with them. If MCPS planned correctly and built unfinished areas of schools when rebuilding, we wouldn't be in this mess of having 6 portables at our school.

[Anonymous]

I agree 9:32. It is absolutely disgraceful. My kids go to a school with portables. Easy for you non-portable people (probably at BFES or DuFief or Wayside) to say it isn't a problem. We pay a lot in taxes to have schools held in buildings.

How do you look at yourself in the mirror, Starr??

[Anonymous]

In my DC's school, the doors to the main building are locked to the outside, even in the back of the bldg. To get in, you have to have a key card. When the kids in the portables need to go to the bathroom, they have to borrow the key card from the teacher. The portables are not right next to the main building. There are only 2 key cards. Young kids are forgetful (as we all know). So, sometimes, they will run out of the portable class to use the bathroom without the key card, only to realize they can't get in. Then they have to run back to get the keycard, and hopefully there's no power outage because otherwise, the key card won't work. There are no bathrooms outside the main building.

The bathroom situation for the kids in the portable sucks. For kids in the main bldg, they don't need to put on their coats in the winter to go to the bathroom. As I said, in my DC's school, the portables are set back from the main bldg, so it would be pretty damn cold to walk to the main bldg w/o your coat in the winter.

This is why I don't like that my DC is in a portable. Not to mention that DC says it's really loud in the portables when the other kids are out at recess since the portables are on the recess blacktop area.

[Anonymous]

They are trashy looking/feeling, don't give that "community" feel that a school should be building, and are an indication of poor management of the district.

Can my kids get a decent education in a portable? Sure. But it's also not the experience I want them to have long-term. They should be reserved for emergencies and truly interim solutions for less than a year while permanent solutions are being put in place.

[Anonymous]

OP,

you are being disingenuous. My husband fled the Vietnam War, with all its hardships, got an MD and PhD, and still thinks portables are evidence of poor planning in such an affluent area, even if the demographics have exploded in recent years.

Portables:

1. They create a security problem if students have to walk outside in an unfenced area to go to the bathroom or other location in school.
2. They take up significant playground or green space on school grounds, reducing play areas and the visibility to supervise students.
Woodlin ES lost a special needs student who wandered off several blocks away onto a busy street because the recess people have no direct line of sight on the playground area due of the 8-10 portables on the playground.
3. They are less insulated, which means that the humidity is very low in the winter, which leads to skin problems for some students. DS developed eczema the winter he was in the portable.
4. They are generally smaller than normal classrooms, which means that students have less space to play indoors when the gym is unavailable, cannot accumulate books in the library corner or have enrichment activities in the classroom that require more space such as science experiments/dancing/acting.
5. Portables can have toxic emissions such as formaldehyde, which may lead to long-term health problems.

This County has the means to do better, which is why parents are pressing for improvements.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The portables are all over our once playground blacktop. No more 4-square, basketball, no recess if it is wet outside (it used to be blacktop only play.) The lunches start at 10:30am, the school has to have 2-3 of the same assemblies to accommodate the school so authors, guest speakers etc.. usually don't happen anymore. Less time with special teachers who have to fit in more classes. Still one nurse aide for 50% more population. Same staff lounge for 50% increase in staff. 2 kids have to go to the bathroom at the same time and takes 10min (between walking, goofing off) and it always disrupts class. Not to mention putting on coats when it is 20 degrees - just to go to the bathroom!
....
So yes, I have a problem with them. If MCPS planned correctly and built unfinished areas of schools when rebuilding, we wouldn't be in this mess of having 6 portables at our school.

Yes, this. I don't have an issue with the portables per se, but with what they represent -- which is poor planning and foot-dragging by MCPS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
OP,

you are being disingenuous. My husband fled the Vietnam War, with all its hardships, got an MD and PhD, and still thinks portables are evidence of poor planning in such an affluent area, even if the demographics have exploded in recent years.

Portables:

1. They create a security problem if students have to walk outside in an unfenced area to go to the bathroom or other location in school.
2. They take up significant playground or green space on school grounds, reducing play areas and the visibility to supervise students.
Woodlin ES lost a special needs student who wandered off several blocks away onto a busy street because the recess people have no direct line of sight on the playground area due of the 8-10 portables on the playground.
3. They are less insulated, which means that the humidity is very low in the winter, which leads to skin problems for some students. DS developed eczema the winter he was in the portable.
4. They are generally smaller than normal classrooms, which means that students have less space to play indoors when the gym is unavailable, cannot accumulate books in the library corner or have enrichment activities in the classroom that require more space such as science experiments/dancing/acting.
5. Portables can have toxic emissions such as formaldehyde, which may lead to long-term health problems.

This County has the means to do better, which is why parents are pressing for improvements.

Damn, that's scary that they lost a kid. I'm originally from CA, and most (if not all) the ES schools there have a fence around the school (including play area). I found it odd that almost none of the ES schools I've seen in MoCo have a fence around it. It's too easy for a kid to leave the school property during recess, or an adult to get on the school property. It's too damn easy to get into the portable classrooms since you don't have to go through the main building. Sure, the kids in the main bldg are safe. But no so for the kids in the portables.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't care if my child is in a portable but it shows how over capacity the school is. It shows poor planning on the part of MoCo as a whole. They are resourced (admin wise) for a specific amount of children and they are obviously understaffed and it is more obvious by how much by how many portables there are.

Besides, our schools are like little cities anyway.. which I hate.

There are the rich kids with tutors in the AP/honors classes (away from the rifraf). There is the middle "class" in normal classes. So you might as well have a trail park to round out the imagery.

Portables are a question of building capacity. They don't have anything to do with staffing.

Also, there are rich kids in portables.

They do not hire more admin staff to support the extra kids "in the school".

Imagery and reality are two different things... I get they don't put poor kids in portables ... you actually have to make a leap to inference to understand the comment.

So when enrollment goes from 600 in the building to 900 in the building plus portables, the school doesn't get any more administrative staff? I find this extremely hard to believe.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The portables are all over our once playground blacktop. No more 4-square, basketball, no recess if it is wet outside (it used to be blacktop only play.) The lunches start at 10:30am, the school has to have 2-3 of the same assemblies to accommodate the school so authors, guest speakers etc.. usually don't happen anymore. Less time with special teachers who have to fit in more classes. Still one nurse aide for 50% more population. Same staff lounge for 50% increase in staff. 2 kids have to go to the bathroom at the same time and takes 10min (between walking, goofing off) and it always disrupts class. Not to mention putting on coats when it is 20 degrees - just to go to the bathroom!
....
So yes, I have a problem with them. If MCPS planned correctly and built unfinished areas of schools when rebuilding, we wouldn't be in this mess of having 6 portables at our school.

Yes, this. I don't have an issue with the portables per se, but with what they represent -- which is poor planning and foot-dragging by MCPS.

What is MCPS dragging its feet about? Building schools costs money. MCPS does not have enough capital funds.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't care if my child is in a portable but it shows how over capacity the school is. It shows poor planning on the part of MoCo as a whole. They are resourced (admin wise) for a specific amount of children and they are obviously understaffed and it is more obvious by how much by how many portables there are.

Besides, our schools are like little cities anyway.. which I hate.

There are the rich kids with tutors in the AP/honors classes (away from the rifraf). There is the middle "class" in normal classes. So you might as well have a trail park to round out the imagery.

Portables are a question of building capacity. They don't have anything to do with staffing.

Also, there are rich kids in portables.

They do not hire more admin staff to support the extra kids "in the school".

Imagery and reality are two different things... I get they don't put poor kids in portables ... you actually have to make a leap to inference to understand the comment.

So when enrollment goes from 600 in the building to 900 in the building plus portables, the school doesn't get any more administrative staff? I find this extremely hard to believe.

We have the same 2 people in our office staff. The same nurse tech, the same one person per special (media, art, PE, music) So no, there are no changes. The paraeducators may work 1 hour more to cover all the lunches/recesses. Oh but have gotten 2 more ESOL teachers to make 3. Go figure.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

We have the same 2 people in our office staff. The same nurse tech, the same one person per special (media, art, PE, music) So no, there are no changes. The paraeducators may work 1 hour more to cover all the lunches/recesses. Oh but have gotten 2 more ESOL teachers to make 3. Go figure.

If your enrollment has gone up substantially, but your staffing hasn't, then your principal is doing something wrong.

[Anonymous]

New schools cost money and take a long time. Portables are the county's way of keeping class sizes small when they can't build a new school right now. The alternative is not a shiny new school every time enrollment goes up a little. The alternative is classes of 40 kids because you don't have enough classrooms.