The classrooms look like any others, with desks, carpet, dry erase boards and book shelves, until you walk out the door into sunlight.
This is the second year that Center Grove schools has had to use modular general education classrooms outside of elementary schools because their buildings don’t have enough room for all the students. The district currently has eight total temporary classrooms. Six are outside Sugar Grove Elementary and two are at Maple Grove Elementary.
The plan is to use the classrooms until the new $42 million elementary school is finished and all the schools are redistricted in the fall of 2019, Superintendent Richard Arkanoff said.
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Center Grove is the only school district using modular classrooms this year. Clark-Pleasant school officials had thought the option may be necessary, but the district made space inside Grassy Creek Elementary School instead, Superintendent Patrick Spray said. But the district may have to address the option next school year, he said.
Last year, Center Grove used eight total modular classrooms at Sugar Grove and Pleasant Grove elementary schools. This year, Maple Grove is using two of the eight classrooms.
A key focus is safety, officials said.
Students have specific procedures to follow in the modular classrooms, fifth grade teacher Jessica Shanafelt said.
Students have to walk to the main school building to use the bathroom, go to lunch and for severe weather drills. They are not allowed to walk out of the classroom without an adult, she said. The classrooms are still connected to the school’s fire alarm, phone system, internet and intercom. The teachers have access to all the technology they would if they were inside the building.
“They know that we can only open the door. We have designated spots for weather and tornado drills,” Shanafelt said.
At Sugar Grove, teachers have worked to make the experience fun for students, calling their six portable classrooms the Sugar Shack.
“Some teachers make it a lot of fun. They make it an adventure for the kids,” Arkanoff said.
Jodi Barth, a fifth grade teacher with a modular classroom, said she tries to make her students have a unique experience with different activities made for the Sugar Shack, such as the Sugar Shack Shop, making individual Sugar Shacks out of gumdrops or playing the song “Sugar Shack” by the Fireballs each morning.
“It talks about a shack right down the tracks and we’re out by the railroad tracks,” Barth said.
Both Barth and Shanafelt taught in modular classrooms last year and built a team with the group of teachers in the Sugar Shack to make the school year in a temporary classroom memorable for students.
“Some kids are excited and they want to see what it looks like because they’ve heard other kids from last year in the Sugar Shack,” Shanafelt said.
At the end of the school year, fifth grade students can submit a speech to be read at the ceremony where the students graduate to middle school, and several mentioned they were a part of the Sugar Shack, Barth said.
“It makes it pretty special,” Barth said.
Although the teachers make school in the Sugar Shack unique in some ways, what the students are doing in the classroom isn’t different from a traditional classroom, Barth said.
Each modular classrooms has carpet, desks, dry erase boards, cubbies and book shelves. The teachers decorate the rooms with posters and hanging lights just like they would any other classroom, Arkanoff said.
“You don’t realize you’re in a modular classroom when you’re inside,” said Stacy Conrad, Center Grove executive director of communications.
