GLENDALE : Toll School Regains Portable Classrooms

A year ago, all eight portable classroom trailers at Toll Middle School were moved away after ninth-graders were transferred to Hoover High School.

Now, portables are coming back. Because the campus’ enrollment of more than 1,350 seventh- and eighth-graders is expected to jump to at least 1,500 in the 1993-94 school year, district officials approved five portables for the school.

“We assumed that we didn’t need them this quickly,” said Sandra Banner, Toll’s assistant principal. “But the most constant thing here is change.”

Toll Middle School is among six campuses in the Glendale Unified School District receiving new portable trailers this month. Sixteen trailers worth $26,000 each were approved for lease-purchase by board members in May and June.

“We have been experiencing steady growth,” said district spokesman Vic Pallos.

So far, new bungalows have been in place at Cerritos, Franklin, Muir and R. D. White elementary schools, said Stephen R. Hodgson, assistant superintendent of business services. All five trailers have also been installed at Toll Middle School.

Six others for Glendale High School should be in place by the end of the month, Hodgson said.

One campus that received two new trailers this summer also got rid of seven older ones.

That was because R. D. White was converted into a year-round school, which reduced the number of students during a session from 1,000 to 750, officials said.

R. D. White Principal Jeannie Flint said it’s been a relief to see the seven older trailers go.

“We have more playground space,” Flint said. “We see a definite difference in breathing room.”