A permanent 'portable' solution?

Enormous sunflowers, vivid yellow against blue sky, climb the outside wall of a first-grade classroom at Mathews Elementary School in Austin, Texas. But no breeze can bend these flowers - they're fabricated, a painted mural.

Likewise, the building they adorn is rootless. It is one of approximately 600 portable classrooms serving the Austin Independent School District (AISD). Roughly 30 percent of the student body here spends at least some of the day in such trailers.

"Portables are the easiest, cheapest way to add square footage to a campus," explains Pete Price, principal of the O. Henry Middle School.

Nationally, about one-fifth of districts face overcrowding, a result of rising enrollments. The Modular Building Institute in Charlottesville, Va., estimates there are nearly a quarter of a million portables being used by public schools, which may increase by 20 percent annually. School boards find it easier to add trailers than new classroom space. And the structures offer flexibility in districts where the enrollment fluctuates from year to year.

Hector Hinojosa, supervisor of plant improvements for Austin, says the oldest portable in the district was built in the 1950s. Not ready for the Smithsonian yet, that building continues to be used on a campus.

Typically the trailers measure 24-by-64 feet with eight-foot ceilings. Each features two classrooms with a wall in between, and is designed to hold 50 people.

Austin portables are built locally. Last year the low bid for an elementary portable was around $57,000 and for secondary about $45,000. Currently there is a moratorium on building new portables, though the district did rent two from GE Modular Space this year. The price of these for nine months, including delivery, pick-up, skirting, and porches, runs $12,450 each.

Purchase price for similar prefab units - referred to as turnkeys because, as with mobile homes, they arrive fully assembled - run from $38,000 to $60,000, with an average cost of $45,000. The range is so great because different regions have different requirements: In the Southeast, structures need to be more windproof; in the Northeast, roofs need to be able to hold a heavy snow load; and in the West, heat needs to be contended with.

Once the contractors come in and do their thing on portables - plumbing, electricity, data lines, porches, walkways - the portables have most of the amenities of permanent classrooms, if not the aesthetic splendor.

In certain cases, the buildings are oxymorons manifest - permanent portables that have been in their location for ages and probably will remain so. Such is the case of the sunflower-adorned structure at Mathews.

"They've been here at least fifteen years," says Principal Ben Kramer. "We are landlocked - we can grow no further," he adds, referring to building growth.

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