The Franklin Reporter & Advocate Eight Villages, One Community
Teachers are busy getting their classrooms ready in the 12 new portable units in place throughout the school district.
The portables, which have been leased for five years at a cost of about $3 million, are needed to handle overcrowding in the schools, said schools Superintendent Edward Seto.
Sampson G. Smith School received its first two portables, and the Elizabeth Avenue School received three more for this year, bringing its total to four.
The remaining elementary and middle schools received new portables to replace units that were more than 20 years old, Seto said.
Each roughly 700-square-foot portable holds two classrooms, each of which can hold about 25 to 30 students.
The portables are air-conditioned, and are connected to their main school buildings with an intercom system, said Rick Goetz, the district’s supervisor of buildings and grounds.
Seto said the district will own the portables after the five-year lease is up.
The district may be able to use them, “or we could lease them out to businesses,” Seto said.
After touring one of the Sampson portables, Seto proclaimed himself satisfied with how it looked.
“This is as good as it comes when it comes to transportables,” he said.
