A 3D model of a portable classroom (not to scale) is pictured behind the home side of the Clarke Central High School Billy Henderson Stadium. A mobile unit with four to six classrooms will be added in the 2020-21 school year to accommodate CCHS’ growing population. “When I travel around to other high schools for sporting events or whatever the case may be, it’s very seldom that I see a school that doesn’t have mobiles,” CCHS Assistant Principal Reginald Thomas said. “With the way the population is going at Clarke Central, I don’t see them going away until (the Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax) rolls back around for us to be able to build a permanent structure.” Graphic by Audrey Enghauser
Clarke Central High School will add four to six portable classrooms in the 2020-21 school year to accommodate the increasing amount of students and teachers.
Due to the growing population of students and teachers at Clarke Central High School, the administration plans to add portable classrooms to the school in the 2020-21 academic school year.
A mobile unit made up of approximately four to six classrooms will be placed behind the home side of the Billy Henderson Stadium, near the student parking lot.
“It’s a way to add space for students to have classrooms to learn in without putting up a (permanent) structure,” CCHS Assistant Principal Reginald Thomas said. “It’s not going to be as much operating space and as much walking space, but they’re big enough to accommodate regular-size classes.”
According to Thomas, the addition is due to an insufficient number of classrooms with the influx of new teachers in the 2019-20 school year.
“What that results in is (new) teachers having to float. When some teacher has a planning period, they have to give up their room (for another teacher to teach in), and these teachers float (between different classrooms) all day,” Thomas said.
CCHS freshman Natalie Soper, who attended Barrow Elementary School during the school’s use of portable classrooms, feels that such learning spaces will not have a significant effect on CCHS.
“I remember being more involved in the teacher, my friends and what we were doing than where it was that we were learning,” Soper said. “If the space is needed, then I don’t see any problem with adding on.”
Thomas believes that portable classrooms will be an adequate way to address the need for more classrooms before a permanent structure is feasible.
“It’s not like being in the building in a classroom, but I think it’s comfortable,” Thomas said. “Eventually, I hope that sometime we will have a structure that connects the West Wing back to the main building.”
