Anonymous wrote: It also affects field trip choices when the grade population is much larger than anyone expected several years earlier. The schools don't have the budget to send 5 classes to wherever when they had always planned for 3.

This has nothing to do with portables, and I wouldn't expect that it was true anyway -- any more than it's true that the schools don't have the budget for 5 teachers when they had always planned for 3.

The problem is safety and that the other facilities at school can't accommodate the bigger population. From a safety standpoint, if a first grader needs to go to the bathroom they leave the trailer and walk outside the school grounds to enter the building or the door is propped open. Most first graders don't wander off or get lost but they are outside without supervision. The doors being propped are another issue.
The lack of an intercom means that the teachers and kids in trailers don't get emergency announcements until someone walks to the portables.

If the library, art room, gym or other shared areas was built to facilitate a much smaller # of kids then the kids just get less of these activities. It also affects field trip choices when the grade population is much larger than anyone expected several years earlier. The schools don't have the budget to send 5 classes to wherever when they had always planned for 3.

Anonymous wrote:Start a petition to raise taxes and spend loads more money on education. I would sign it.

Not sure what your point is otherwise. MCPS is underfunded and also grossly mismanaged as it lacks any serious oversight. So, get another petition together to change that. Otherwise, what is your point?

And i gotta say - we are at a great school but the trailers do give me pause - but i know its just my pride not reality.

If you ask the kids, being in a trailer is cool. They all want to be in a portable. Its only the parents who freak out because of the cultural associations with trailer.

Underfunded? Why do they have a surplus of millions?

When I worked in Fairfax County Pubic Schools, I taught in a trailer for several years. It was fine; I really enjoyed it actually. I didn't think there was anything wrong with being n a trailer. I think we called them "tempos". The only problem was that, at the time, I didn't have an intercom to the main office. That was many years ago; I assume the trailers nowadays have that communication.

Start a petition to raise taxes and spend loads more money on education. I would sign it.

Not sure what your point is otherwise. MCPS is underfunded and also grossly mismanaged as it lacks any serious oversight. So, get another petition together to change that. Otherwise, what is your point?

And i gotta say - we are at a great school but the trailers do give me pause - but i know its just my pride not reality.

If you ask the kids, being in a trailer is cool. They all want to be in a portable. Its only the parents who freak out because of the cultural associations with trailer.

Anonymous wrote:If you want fewer kids in trailers, lobby the state for more money for school construction.

+1

Bingo! If people don't support the construction of additional schools, then they shouldn't complain about overcrowding schools.

They are not trailers.

They are learning cottages.