PORTABLE CLASSROOMS

Consider it a portable school: 31 portable classrooms placed side by side in two distinct pods.

Red Oak Elementary School in Oak Park, the newest school in Ventura County’s fastest-growing district, can be easily disassembled and moved to another location.

But these are not the cave-like trailers commonly thought of at the mention of the word portables .

The classrooms are disguised by pale pink stucco with mauve trim and trellises, a large lunch area and sidewalks leading right up to the buildings.

Students and teachers can walk easily between classrooms--brightened by large windows--to common areas that house computer labs or workshops. Only the hollow sound under their feet gives the secret away.

“I think of it as permanent, I don’t even think of it as a portable,” said fifth-grade teacher Joni Chancer, showing off a built-in wall unit and storage facility behind the dry-erase chalkboard in her classroom. Next to the board sits a cabinet housing a television, VCR and computer.

Chancer, who has decorated her three windows with brightly colored curtains, said her classroom at Red Oak is a marked improvement upon another portable she used in a different district.

“It was a trailer. There was a small window and paper-thin walls,” Chancer said. “It was dark, like walking into a box. It’s difficult to teach in that kind of environment.”

But the Oak Park Unified School District is planning for the future, when growth trends might shift to the other end of town, creating a need for classrooms in other areas.

In fact, the only permanent building on the Red Oak Elementary campus houses the administration, and school officials say it could become a community center someday, as the number of young families sending children to the school dwindles. Even the park and playground are shared with the local park service.

The school, which opened in two phases, the latest in 1994, is the product of years of planning in the district, where the student population has nearly tripled over the past decade.

Principal Jeff Hamlin, who was part of the planning process from Day One, said the concept was tricky to sell. “We had people with all new homes, and we were asking them to come into a portable city. They said, ‘No way.’ ”

But residents warmed to the school once they saw the plan. “We’re spending all of this money on schools,” Hamlin said. “How can we make decisions that will address shifting enrollment in a positive way? It’s a nice merger of the permanent and portable concept.”