On March 16, the Mercer Island School District announced that it will place additional portable classrooms at three Island schools.

The announcement, posted on the school district’s website, said, “Due to growing enrollment and lack of classroom space at LR, IP and IMS, two portable classrooms (a double-wide portable building) will be placed on the school campuses this summer. The district is presently working with the City of Mercer Island regarding the locations of the portable classrooms.

The district projects that it will need to site the elementary portables on impervious surfaces, such as playgrounds, and the middle school portable will be placed on the campus in an area where a previous portable was once located.

Chief financial officer Dean Mack said, “Due to our current facility limitations, we must move to provide classroom space for students projected to arrive on our doorstep in September 2012. This growth in student population was forecast in our long-range enrollment projections.”

The buildings and their installation are expected to cost about $100,000 each. Each unit contains two classrooms that will house 24 students each. The  classrooms will not have any bathrooms.

Approximately 650 Island students are housed in portable classrooms sometime during the school day — the equivalent of an entire elementary school.