Portable classrooms meant to be quick fix

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This article was published 16/11/2015 (3813 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Southern Winnipeg is following the rest of the province in building modular schoolrooms as it attempts to meet growing student enrolment.

“We are in ongoing conversations with the province regarding enrolment projects and enrolment pressures as related to Waverley West growing,” says Ted Fransen, superintendent of education for Pembina Trails School Division.

He says student numbers just keep rising, necessitating portable classroom construction.

“It’s a very common practice across the province.”

Fort Richmond Collegiate recently added six state-of-the-art portable classrooms at a cost of $830,000, and four more will open at Arthur A. Leach later this month.

FRC’s went under construction April 1, received their occupancy permit September 4, and the work was substantially completed by Sept. 15, Fransen says. They were open to classes at the beginning of the school year, and surrounding landscaping was finished in October.

The portables themselves cost the province over $783,000 to build, not including furnishings and landscaping. Each has a maximum capacity for 30 to 35 students, but the plan is for each to only house 25.

Fransen says portables went up instead of adding to the existing school structure because the excess capacity is meant to be temporary.

“Once the province and the school division move forward with our new high school in Waverley West, the province, which owns these portables, will have other uses for them and move them.”

The planned new high school is earmarked for the intersection of Kenaston Boulevard and Bison Drive but a start date is likely well into the future as the project hasn’t even received approval yet, Fransen says. He wouldn’t speculate on the possible capacity of the proposed new school.

Student population at FRC is currently at about 1,250.

Four portable classrooms were installed at Arthur A. Leach School in Waverley Heights and will be occupied shortly, Fransen adds. That project’s tab reached a little over $855,000 and completion is slated for late November 2015. Their capacity will match FRC’s.

Arthur A. Leach’s portable classrooms are connected, whereas FRC’s aren’t right now.

“At FRC we decided to do it in two stages because FRC desperately needed the classroom space and at Arthur A. Leach, they are also anxious to move in, but the decision was made to do it all at once.”

FRC’s portable classroom link will be completed next summer at an additional cost that wasn’t available.

Richard Kamchen is a community correspondent for Fort Richmond.