Pinon Hills parents push for portable classrooms

Parents of students at Pinon Hills Elementary have mounted a campaign trying to persuade the school district to add portable classrooms to the Stephanie Way school.

Ron Santi, president of the school's parent-teacher organization, said Pinon Hills has suffered from overcrowding for several years.

"Three years ago we were in the low 470s," he said. "Last year, we had 491 students. This year, we have 531."

Last fall, Pinon Hills was the only elementary school in the Valley to see an increase in enrollment, gaining 24 students.

"The population here at the school keeps growing because this is a desirable area people want to live in," Santi said. "The school was built for 475 students. Instead of a portable, we've been reduced to converting a storage room into a classroom."

Santi, who has three children in the school, said Pinon Hills was built in 1992, but that its final pod was never completed.

"At that time, the enrollment didn't warrant it," he said. "They promised they'd get it done in five years, but never did."

Santi said portable classrooms were part of the continuation bond campaign, which Pinon Hills parents supported and helped pass in November.

"The Johnson Lane voter turnout was 72 percent in favor of the bond, the highest in county," Santi said. "Last fall, we were instrumental in working on the capital improvement extension bond. The portables for Pinon Hills were not on the first tier, but they were part of the capital improvements plan. They're not there now. It's been delayed again."

In a letter to parents, Superintendent Carol Lark said the portables are still proposed for future bond funding, but have been removed from the district's 5-year capital improvement plan.

"It is true that it was on the 5-year capital plan and fell off, along with several other projects, when revenues in our capital funding sharply declined," Lark said. "Now that we have passed a bond, I may only access money based upon ability to pay it back This year we were able to access $3.5 million and we have been doing the projects that were at the top of the list, like replacing fire alarm systems, re-keying classrooms, and replacing roofs and HVAC systems most in need of repair."

Lark said the storage room Santi referred to will be roughly the same size as a regular classroom.

"This summer we will be converting a large storage room that will include a hallway (with the firemen's blessing) into a classroom," she said. "The average square footage in your building ranges between 600 and 900 square feet and this new classroom will be 664 square feet."

Lark also said the district is in the process of hiring an outside consultant to develop a facilities master plan. District officials have considered moving sixth-graders to the middle schools and ninth-graders to the high school if declining enrollment continues.

Lark said other options include rezoning, overturning variances for the 22 students at Pinon Hills who come from other zones, or moving the current JROTC portables at Douglas High School to Pinon Hills once a permanent facility for JROTC is built.

But Santi said many of these options would cause greater delays.

"All of these things take time and money, and we're still ending the school year with more incoming first-graders than outgoing sixth-graders," he said. "We're asking for two portables. They can't be that expensive. To build a pod would be expensive, but no one expects a pod to be built. We're not asking for anything special, or anything the school doesn't deserve. If they're having problems with the budget, then they should ask for help. The PTO has taken the position that we are willing to put up some of the costs for the portables. We've made a commitment of $20,000."

District Chief Financial Officer Holly Luna estimated the purchase and installation of one portable would cost $235,000.

"This estimate includes engineering for specifications and design, permitting, running of utilities, creation of pad, and purchase of the portable itself," Luna said. "Obviously, economies of scale would benefit the district and therefore the cost per portable would decrease if more than one portable was purchased at a time, such as the district did when purchasing the three portables for the Douglas High School JROTC program."