Austin ISD's board of trustees is considering how the district might reduce its use of portable classroom buildings on campuses throughout the district.

In September—four months after voters rejected two of the district's four bond propositions—trustees scheduled a Nov. 11 discussion on strategies for portable use reduction and possible elimination. At the work session, trustees did not take action but received a report on portable classroom use in AISD and sought more insight from the district's facilities team.

Superintendent Meria Carstarphen noted portable buildings and portable classrooms are not the same thing; portable buildings can contain as many as three portable classrooms, according to AISD.

"Proposition 2 would have allowed us to construct some efficient classroom space to replace at least 80 of our portables, but Prop. 2 did not pass," she continued. "In the short term, schools still have to rely on portable buildings to provide capacity. In the long term, a portable reduction plan could be developed, but it also depends on how we might be looking forward to future bonds and so on and so forth," she said.

As of the 2013–14 school year, there are 630 portable buildings and 1,206 classrooms within portable buildings in AISD, according to the district's preliminary utilization and portable classroom building comparison. At elementary schools, there are 842 portable classrooms.

Trustees Jayme Mathias and Lori Moya pointed out that portable buildings are not only being used at overcrowded schools, but throughout the district—for example, middle schools in AISD are an average of 83 percent at capacity, yet 177 portable classrooms are being used at those schools.

Other findings include:

• Akins High School in Southwest Austin has 40 portable classrooms, more than any other school in the district. Akins is operating at 108 percent of permanent capacity by enrollment.
• Cook Elementary School—the most overcrowded school in the district—in Northwest Austin is at 167 percent capacity and has 26 portable classrooms.
• Bedichek Middle School, Blazier Elementary School and Murchison Middle School each have 30 portable classrooms.
• Burnet Middle School and Lanier High School with the Premier program have 28 portable classrooms.
• Wooten Elementary School, which is at 156 percent capacity, and Wooldridge Elementary School, which is at 124 percent capacity, each have 26 portable classrooms.

"We always get told that portable classrooms are a way of alleviating overcrowding on a campus on a temporary basis at least but we've got schools that have had portables since they opened in the mid–'80s," trustee Robert Schneider said.

Carstarphen said she has heard a mix of reasons why portables are being used at under-enrolled schools, noting some are being used for after-school programs and some are so old they cannot be moved.

Trustee Gina Hinojosa said the district should carefully evaluate non-instructional uses for possible elimination to determine the value of programs housed in portables.

"I don't think the goal should be necessarily to do away with portables where we're not having the need for more instructional space," she said.

AISD staff calculated it would cost about $430 million to eliminate portable buildings by converting them into permanent space, and that would be cost prohibitive without a future bond election to fund it.

To plan for overcrowding, AISD Chief Operations Officer Lawrence Fryer said the district is now building schools with a larger footprint, including the new North Central Elementary School No. 2, which will have at least an 800-student capacity.

Every year, AISD also conducts a utilization survey asking principals to report how each classroom is being used. This year, as part of the development of the district's facility master plan, AISD hired an independent third party consultant, Facilities Programming and Consulting, to conduct site visits and verify the current use of all facilities, including portable buildings. The study is scheduled for completion in November 2013.