Breathing Room?

Deborah Boyd’s classroom at Abraham Lincoln School in Simi Valley looks like a typical second-grade room. Construction-paper owls hang from the ceiling, and children’s books line the shelves.

But Boyd’s classroom isn’t a permanent building. It is one of hundreds of “portables” that have sprouted up on Ventura County campuses in recent years.

Portables have drawn mixed reviews. Teachers praise them for being new, clean and spacious, and principals say they are inexpensive and quick to install. Some environmentalists and legislators, however, question the air quality of the prefabricated classrooms.

Despite those concerns, local school officials say portable classrooms are not harmful to children.

The classrooms have modern heating and air-conditioning systems, they say, and are held to the same safety standards as permanent rooms. The new buildings must also be approved by the Division of the State Architect.

“I don’t think it matters if it’s a permanent or a portable classroom,” said Lowell Schultze, assistant superintendent of the Simi Valley Unified School District. “They are all just as safe.”

But not everyone is convinced. In the San Fernando Valley last April, school officials vacated one portable classroom after several students became ill. Some anxious parents had their children tested for exposure to chemicals used in building materials.

After performing toxicology tests on one child, his doctor found higher-than-normal levels of arsenic, formaldehyde and phenol. The doctor blamed improper ventilation of the portable classroom. Tests ordered by the school district found no unusual levels of airborne contaminants, officials said.

Warning Issued

The next month, the nonprofit Environmental Working Group released a study saying that children who attend school in portable classrooms may be at higher risk of exposure to cancer-causing toxins used in construction.

“The unintended consequence of class-size reduction is that we may be sending millions of children into an environment that may be hazardous to their health,” said Bill Walker, California director for the Washington, D.C.-based organization. “The state needs to intervene to make sure that portables are as safe as possible, rather than going in after some teachers and kids get sick.”

Assemblyman Kevin Shelley (D-San Francisco) wrote a bill calling for the state to study the safety of portable classrooms and to provide schools with training to ensure that they are properly ventilated. But last month Gov. Gray Davis vetoed the bill, citing broad language in the part of the bill that focused on pesticide use near schools.

Last week Assemblywoman Sally Havice (D-Cerritos) called for a hearing of a new committee on school safety to discuss air quality in portable classrooms.

State education officials acknowledge the air quality concerns and are working with school districts on how to maintain portable classrooms and minimize any potential health effects.

Among Ventura County’s largest school districts, Simi Valley Unified has 207 portables, Oxnard Elementary has about 150, Ventura Unified has 133 and Conejo Valley Unified has about 125.

Bret Breton, a consultant who keeps tabs on safety in county schools, said he has investigated a few complaints this school year. He said problems sometimes occur because teachers turn off an air conditioner or maintenance workers don’t change the air filter, cutting down on proper ventilation.

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Claudia Jensen, a Ventura pediatrician whose daughters attend local schools, said she still has some concerns about portables. “It’s obvious to me that schools are not attending to the children’s safety,” she said. “The safety of the kids becomes a side issue, and what’s more important are politics and funding.”

Some experts take a different view, however. Parents should be more concerned about the quality of the education rather than the quality of the air, said Bob Phalen, director of the air pollution health effects laboratory at UC Irvine.

Proper maintenance of the building and its air-conditioning system is the key to keeping kids safe, Phalen said. “Whether a building is temporary or permanent, new or old, is not as important as what is being done in the building and how it is being maintained.”

Phalen said teachers should use common sense when it comes to ventilation. For example, they shouldn’t keep paint cans open for a long time, and they should close the window if the wind is blowing dust outside.

At Lincoln School in Simi Valley, Boyd said the biggest downfall of portables at her school is that they don’t have phones or running water. But she said her asthma has actually improved since she moved into one of the school’s five portable classrooms.

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And her colleague, Rita Geerson, said she likes being in a portable because it’s removed from the hustle and bustle of the main campus, and close to the playing field. “We call ourselves classrooms on the golf course,” she said.

Geerson, however, would like to have more ventilation. The school bolted the windows shut after a few thefts. “We just leave the air on and the door open,” she said. “And we haven’t had any problems with kids being ill.”

Though portable rooms have been around since World War II, they became increasingly popular during class-size reduction, when school districts scrambled to find classroom space. School districts could spend less money and less time installing portable rooms than building new schools.

The buildings are intended to be a quick fix for housing students but often become more than that. “We have a saying here: There’s nothing more permanent in California than a portable classroom,” said Jim Murdoch, executive director of the School Facility Manufacturers Assn. in Sacramento.

At least two county schools--Portola in Ventura and Red Oak Elementary in Oak Park--are made up entirely of prefabricated classrooms.

‘More Bang for the Buck’

Portola Principal Teresa Johnson said she could get additional restrooms and teacher workrooms because of the money saved. “Because we could get more bang for the buck, we went with this,” she said.

School districts can purchase portables for between $40,000 and $60,000, while permanent classrooms cost $80,000 to $100,000, according to state officials. Districts can also lease the portables for about $4,000 a year.

Because they are built in factories, portables can be installed at schools within a few months, while permanent school buildings take at least a year to construct.

In addition to the cost, school officials praise the flexibility of portables. Districts can move classrooms from one school to another to accommodate enrollment changes.

“If for some reason there is no longer as great a need, you can pick those buildings up and move them,” said Stan Mantooth, assistant superintendent for Ventura County schools.

Simi Valley Unified recently moved four classrooms from Simi Valley High School to Valley View Junior High School. And Ventura Unified moved a handful of portables from Serra School to Buena and Ventura high schools.

During the first few years of class-size reduction, the demand for portables was so high that the companies couldn’t produce them fast enough.

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John Kothlow, president of the Riverside-based Aurora Modular Industries, said the demand has dropped somewhat, but school districts are still buying portables in large numbers to allow for enrollment growth.

Oxnard Elementary School District, for example, has ordered about 40 additional portable classrooms.

And even though Proposition 1A set aside $6.7 billion for school construction in California, educators anticipate that school districts will still rely on portables when they are in a crunch.

“Districts don’t have many choices in how to house students once a school site gets crowded,” said Jim Bush of the state Department of Education. “Portables are about the only alternative they have until they build new schools.”