More mobile classrooms for U-46 schools

More mobiles are on the move in Elgin Area School District U-46.

School board members this week approved adding one of six recently purchased mobile units to Harriet Gifford Elementary in Elgin.

One more mobile, district spokesman Tony Sanders said, will each be placed at Coleman Elementary in Elgin and Oakhill Elementary in Streamwood.

The remaining units, Sanders said, are sitting in an Indiana warehouse.

The total cost of the units bought this spring was $535,401.

If no more mobiles are placed, there will be 61 units in 22 of the district's 53 schools - three fewer units than last year.

It's unlikely the district will let any of the new units go unused this year, Sanders said.

"I know for the upcoming school year, there's a cognizant effort to make sure we don't exceed the number of classrooms we had last year," he said.

Chicago-based architecture, construction, engineering and environmental firm Wight and Co. has been selected to complete a capital planning and facilities study, with the aim of eliminating the district's use of mobile classrooms.

Initially slated to be completed by December, the study will now be completed in the spring.

U-46 decides which schools get mobiles, Sanders said, based on enrollment projections.

With decreased enrollment expected in the 2008-09 school year, Huff and Channing Elementary in Elgin and Streamwood High School are each losing a mobile unit.

Huff will feature two mobiles this year. Streamwood, which has the most units in the district, will go from 12 mobiles to 11. Channing will have just one mobile.

Crowding in schools with minority populations is a pillar of the racial discrimination lawsuit pending against the district.

Of the 22 U-46 schools featuring mobile classrooms this school year, 19 have a Hispanic majority.

Sanders said the district will wait to place the remaining three units until summer's end.

Because of increased enrollment, Sanders said the district expects at least one of the remaining new mobiles to go to Nature Ridge Elementary in Bartlett.

"Some of these decisions won't be made until registration is over with," he said. "With the current economy, there are some unknowns. Local parents may be losing their homes and moving, or they may be taking their children out of private schools and enrolling them (in U-46) to save money."