Dear Editor,
[Re: Modular classrooms coming, 91原创 Advance Times, June 13]
I don't understand why it has taken so long for our B.C. education ministers to realize that modular classrooms are the best answer to overcrowded schools, if there is room on the site.
Installing them means that kids can get into well-heated and ventilated rooms, with toilets nearby, much faster than an addition would take.
Just before we moved to 91原创 at the end of 1988, I was teaching at a K to 9 school in Regina. It had two modular classroom wings: one for the Grade 1 to 3 classes; and one for the Grade 4 to 6 classes. They were attached to the main entrance area of the school, for easy access to the gyms, staff room, office, photocopier, adult washrooms, etc. (The kindergarten and Grade 7 to 9 classes remained in that area, as the Grade 7 to 9 teachers operated as a middle school.)
As I went every day to teach music to the K to 6 classes, I had no feeling of being 'outside' the school. I was merely in a couple of hallways within the building. And the students had the same access to the outdoors for play time, and parent drop-off and pick-up as did those in the main area: an outside door from their classroom.
Finally, they can save the district a lot of money if the demographics of the neighbourhood changes, and many of the children are past the age of needing an elementary school: Just give them to a school which really needs them 鈥� as they already do with portables.
Alison Temple, Fernridge
