Number of U-46 mobiles to stay flat
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The number of mobile classrooms in Elgin Area School District U-46 will stay about the same in the fall, according to the district.
The U-46 school board approved a plan Monday to use 23 mobile classrooms at the district’s 53 schools during the 2011-12 school year.
“Right now, it’s the plan,” Chief Operations Officer Jeff King said. “The only way it may differ is if we get lots of August enrollments.”
If that happens, the district will still have 54 mobile classrooms in storage at its buildings, according to U-46’s application to the Kane County Regional Office of Education.
U-46 would have to seek approval from the school board and the regional office of education if it needed to use one of the mothballed classrooms, King said.
Portable classrooms will be used at the following schools: Bartlett High School (4); Channing Elementary (3), Hillcrest Elementary (1), Lowrie Elementary (1), Washington Elementary (1) and Coleman Elementary (1) in Elgin; Lincoln Elementary (4) in Hoffman Estates; Laurel Hill Elementary (3) and Ontarioville Elementary (3) in Hanover Park; and Nature Ridge in Bartlett (2).
That’s roughly the same number that were used in the district this year and is still down significantly from the 2009-10 school year. U-46’s use of mobile classrooms has dropped because the district increased its class sizes last year, creating more apparent capacity at its schools.
Four of the schools expected to use mobiles in the fall — Ontarioville, Lincoln, Nature Ridge and Laurel Hill — are among the most crowded elementary schools in the district, according to a recent report from the Citizens’ Advisory Council. Bartlett High School will be the most crowded high school in the district, according to the same report.
The Citizens’ Advisory Council has recommended boundary changes to even out enrollment spikes and dips across the district, but there are currently no plans to revisit school attendance boundaries.
The district also plans to destroy 13 mobile units (16 classrooms total) during the summer because of their age and condition. It will cost about $2,600 to demolish each unit, for a total of about $34,000.
