Portable dangers: PSU architect wants to build a better classroom, state industry

When local schools bulge with too many students, one of the first options for school districts is slapping a new “portable classroom” on the playground.

They’re cheap. They go up quickly. And they don’t require voter approval of a bond measure.

Portland Public Schools – which has built only two new schools in the past 40 years – uses 129 portables, many of them with two classrooms each, says district spokesman Matt Shelby.

Those portables could easily provide classroom space for 5,000 or more students, or one out of every nine students in the district.