If you drive by Highland avenue and look in the direction of the high school you would definitely see it. The large, dark-blue, wheeless trailer. It wasn’t there a year ago.
The modular classrooms, or as the students and teachers call them “the mods”, were built on the school lawn before the destruction of the west wing of the high school. The Foreign Language, English, and History departments that were concentrated in the west wing of the old school building are now located in the mods. Some of those classes are still scattered throughout the main building.
The mods themselves are only rentals. Once work on the new building is done, the workers hope to finish before the fall of 2019, the departments inside the mods will move back in. At that point the mods would be gone.
For students to get inside, we walk up a ramp and through the “In” door. To leave, we go out the “Out” door — the one facing city hall. There is only one hallway in the modular classroom, a straight shot from one end to the other. However that just makes exiting a crowded chore. The classrooms, rooms M1 to M20, line both sides of a hallway much smaller than those of a regular high school.
There’s a staff bathroom and two-separate boys and girls rooms for the students, though two of the letters have been ripped off of the boys’ door and now it just says “Bo”. For safety reasons, whenever students or staff enter the mods they show the door monitor their ID otherwise they will not be allowed in.
One thing the students and teachers praise the mods for is the controlled air conditioning in each room. Something that everybody missed during the hot days of the school year in the old building. In fact, the school day was cut short on September 5th and 6th due to the outside construction going on, preventing some classrooms in the main building from opening their windows and letting cool air to get in.
If you ask some students about the temperature inside the modular classes, we will complain that their teachers crank the AC way too high. However, most will admit that it is nicer to have the option than not. And most teachers are willing to turn the thermostat down if we ask enough.
Another complaint students have is that when it rains we have to rush out of the main building to get to the mods and vice-versa. The end result, based on the strength of the rain, are soaked and irritated students. At this point, we have not had to walk to the modular classes in the snow, but when we do it will be uncomfortable for everyone.
