Ask any school administrator about mobile classrooms and you’re likely to get an earful, much of it unpleasant.
These classrooms, often situated behind school buildings, usually are nothing more than last-ditch efforts to alleviate congested classrooms.
But the cold reality is that many children attending McHenry County schools have no other option. They must endure the rigors of learning in these cramped quarters.
Indeed, about 2,000 students, or about 5 percent of McHenry County’s nearly 39,000 students in public elementary and high schools, attend classes daily in the more than 80 mobile classrooms spread across the county.
It’s a disappointing figure to educators. Despite the county’s growing affluence, teachers and school administrators point to recent taxpayer reluctance to approve referendum proposals that would finance school-construction projects.
Mobile classrooms “are a reasonable alternative for a school district that doesn’t have the resources to build permanent facilities,” said Don Englert, the county’s regional schools superintendent.
“They take heavier maintenance than a permanent building, and their utility costs are higher,” he said. But on the positive side, he added, “They’re usually air-conditioned.”
Mobile classrooms are widely regarded as poor stepchildren to real school buildings. But in areas with rapidly growing populations, such as McHenry County, they’re indispensable.
Although not pretty, they’re cheap compared with brick-and-mortar additions. And they work well enough, especially in that back-to-the-drawing-board atmosphere that follows the defeat of yet another bond referendum proposal.
The cost of mobile classrooms varies widely, educators say.
A used, single-classroom unit in good shape goes for about $5,000. A new, two-classroom unit acquired this spring for Bush Elementary School in Johnsburg cost $51,000. The school paid $11,000 more to prepare the site and add plumbing and electricity.
If that seems like a lot of money, educators note the cost of building a school hovers around $10 million. Additions to existing buildings cost about $100,000 per room.
The first mobile classrooms went up in McHenry County in the 1970s. This year, nine of the county’s 19 school districts will use them.
James Reinhard, an English teacher for 28 years at Woodstock High School, was assigned last December to a mobile unit with two classrooms and an office.
“The biggest drawback is that I feel isolated from everybody else. I have to go into the main building to pick up mail, to go to the library, to do anything. That’s the part I don’t like,” said Reinhard.
Last year, the school had three mobile classrooms. This school year, it will have 10.
Woodstock High’s new freshman class is expected to have 150 more students than last spring’s senior class. Also, with a $26 million school-expansion project under way, some classrooms will be taken out of service.
In 2,400-student Johnsburg District 12, growth has been slow compared with that in the rest of McHenry County. But it has been sufficiently steady to force officials to place two mobile units at each of the district’s five schools, said Supt. Robert Gough.
Three years ago, voters defeated a referendum proposal that would have financed construction of permanent school additions.
“It was the community’s way of telling us that (construction) was not their first choice and that they wanted us to continue using mobile units,” said Gough.
Though mobile classrooms help districts with space problems, they also can create cramped conditions. They often produce crowding in cafeterias and gymnasiums, common areas of schools that are designed for only so many students.
“They tax the core of the school,” said Jeff O’Connell, associate superintendent of McHenry District 15, which has 18 mobile classrooms outside its seven schools. About 540 of the district’s 4,450 students attend classes in at least one mobile unit.
School administrators view mobile classrooms as a temporary fix, but some districts end up using them for many years.
Harvard District 50 has had three mobile classrooms since the early 1970s. The units, at Washington School, are used by special education and kindergarten students, said Principal Kathleen Boese.
For now, it’s a waiting game for most McHenry County school districts. If they’re not waiting for additions or new buildings, they’re waiting for voters to approve referendum proposals or for growth to slow.
Others put faith in state legislators, but that has been disappointing.
“Spring or summer would have been the optimum time (for the General Assembly) to help us,” said Harvard Supt. Richard Crosby. Now, Crosby said, “I don’t see anything in the works that would assist us.”
