St. Johns County School District relying on 120 portables to provide overcrowding relief
The St. Johns County School District is looking to add 120 new relocatable units at 16 schools to accommodate growth in the 2022-23 school year.
Nicole Cubbedge, the school district's director for planning and government relations, made the recommendation at a school board workshop Tuesday.
Over the last 20 years, the district has undergone significant expansion, and last year alone the student population increased by 7%. And the pattern shows no signs of slowing anytime soon.
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A new high school will open in the Beachwalk neighborhood of St. Johns in time for the 2022-23 school year. And the district plans to build four new schools (one elementary and three K-8s) and build an addition on to another one.
But in the meantime, space is needed to house the overflow of students currently pouring into the district.
Modular units — otherwise known as relocatables or portables — are often the solution.
"They provide temporary relief," said Cubbedge.
New construction and expansions take time and money, so when the district sees the number of students in a particular school begin to swell, it adds relocatable classrooms to the campus. The plan is that, like a bandage that can be applied and then removed, the makeshift classrooms are taken down when newly built schools catch up with the growth in that area.
Next year, for example, the St. Johns County School District will dismantle a total of 17 portables at two different buildings.
In some cases, even newly constructed school campuses have to bring in relocatables after opening if more students enroll than anticipated, which happens a lot, according to Cubbedge.
The Department of Education's growth projections often don't match the actual number of students who end up attending a school, especially when it's a new building, because the local school district can only build to the capacity anticipated when it applies for state approval. That doesn't take into account how many more families with students may move into that school zone by the time the building opens.
"This [relocatables] allows us to keep up with the growth as we're working to keep pace with projections," said Cubbedge.
Cubbedge said neither she nor Superintendent of Schools Tim Forson, each of whom have worked for the district for up to 20 years, have seen as high a number of portables added in one academic year.
School board member Patrick Canan said he found the number untenable.
"Being in this position where we're adding 120 relocatables is unacceptable," said Canan. "What's frustrating is being limited in projections."
Forson pointed out that it wasn't just an imperfect system of making projections that was to blame, but financial constraints in the construction of new schools.
"So it's not just getting the numbers to get (state) approval (for construction); it's getting the capacity to make it happen," Forson said.
Another thing Cubbedge's office will do is review attendance zones and adjust them if there is a crowding or an influx of students expected. Both those issues are common in the high growth northern sector of the county, but is beginning to occur also in the areas of Wildwood Road and State Road 207 where many new subdivisions are being built.
Some of those zoning changes could go into effect for the 2022-23 school year.
This article originally appeared on St. Augustine Record: St. Johns County Schools adding 120 relocatables to deal with growth
