Make TBO Your Home Page| Subscribe To The Paper| Advertise With Us| Contact Us| Login| Edit Profile| Register
Highlands Today
Email
Print
Surplus Portable Classrooms Available
ADVERTISEMENT
Published: November 10, 2008
SEBRING - Surplus portable classrooms - you can't buy one - but non-profit organizations can get one or more for free by paying for the relocation costs.
The Highlands County School District currently has six portables that are available right now. Soon, they might have four more, including one from Hill-Gustat Middle School and one from the Avon Park bus compound, said district Purchasing Coordinator Allen Parker.
"If we can use them for storage or something like that, we try to keep them," he said, like the ones the teen parent program uses.
If the surplus portables are not donated to a not-for-profit organization, they have to be demolished. The only cost to the organization is the moving expense.
"That's why we try to make sure that we can get them donated so they can pay the moving expenses and save us from having to pay for the demolition," Parker said.
Most of the surplus portables were built in the mid to late 1970s.
The school district facilities department inspects the portable classrooms annually. If it is determined that a portable is not suitable for classroom use and cannot be repaired, a recommendation is made to declare it as surplus.
Non-profit organizations that have recently received surplus portables include the Avon Park Boys and Girls Club and Avon Park Lakes Baptist Church.
Church secretary Karen Combis said the church got three portables around Aug. 1 that are housing Sunday school classes. The youth are using one and the other two are used by the young adults of the congregation.
If they were purchased with federal funds, the portable classrooms cannot be sold to an individual to live in, Parker stressed. "We are very limited in what we can do with the things."
Moving a portable is not a simple do-it-yourself process.
You need permits and have to pay fees and get approval from the city and county to move the structures, Parker said.
The school district works with a company that relocates the portables and handles all the details. The school district pays the company (about $4,000) and then the recipient of the portable pays the school district.
It costs nearly the same amount to have a portable demolished and hauled away, but then the school district incurs that cost.
"So you can see why we would like to donate them if possible," Parker said. "It's on a first-come first-served basis; they need to give me a call."
If any not-for-profit organization is interested in a surplus portable classroom, contact Parker at 471-5595.
Marc Valero can be reached at 386-5826 or mvalero@highlandstoday.com
Email
Print
ADVERTISEMENT
Advertisement
TBO.com - Tampa Bay Online ©2009 Media General Communications Holdings, LLC. A Media General company. Member Agreement | Privacy Statement | Work With Us
