HOULTON, Maine — Two modular classrooms will soon be up and running for students at Houlton Elementary and Houlton Southside schools.
Thanks to federal grant funds provided as part of the COVID-19 relief plan, RSU 29 purchased two two modular buildings at a cost of about $375,000 including enclosures, groundwork and equipping the dwellings.
“The buildings are in their final stages,” RSU 29 Superintendent Ellen Halliday explained Feb. 24. “Sprinkler systems and fire alarms are being installed. They will be utilized in the very near future.”
Once complete, the two buildings will be used for a variety of functions for the two schools.
“The portables are set up to help us increase our capacity to work with students following the safety guidelines that we are currently under from the Department of Education and the Center for Disease Control,” Halliday said. “Each building will contain two learning spaces and their uses will be fluid depending upon our need.”
At Houlton Southside School, a permanent enclosed hallway was constructed so that students could enter into the modular building without being exposed to the elements.
A similar construction was not possible at Houlton Elementary School as that building is not equipped with a sprinkler system. The district hopes to replace its 50-year-old elementary school sometime in the future.
Instead, a temporary enclosure is being constructed for Houlton Elementary School to provide protection from the elements for those students who need to access the building.
The need for two modular buildings arose because of DOE and CDC guidelines for spacing as part of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The idea of modular classrooms is not entirely a new concept. It was first brought up by the district seven years ago as a possibility to ease overcrowding in Houlton Elementary School brought on by the closure of Wellington School in Monticello.
Those modular buildings were never added, due to the large expense to lease. Instead the school board opted to move sixth-graders from Houlton Southside School to Houlton Middle-High School, and move third-graders from Houlton Elementary School to Houlton Southside School.
The new buildings give the district a greater amount of flexibility with arranging classes, the superintendent said. The district will also use the space for teachers to do Zoom meetings, host instructional videos or conduct virtual conferences, Halliday added.
“Current plans have us moving some programs to the portables such as music and library and other specials so we can free up learning spaces within the schools and provide larger spaces for some of our programming that have had to push into classrooms,” she explained. “As more families who have chosen remote learning are now choosing to return to in-person learning, we may need to add additional classrooms. This gives us the space to do so.”
