CONCRETE CLASSROOMS GO IN; SAUGUS CAMPUS INSTALLS STRUCTURES TO OBEY LAW.

Byline: Angela M. Lemire Staff Writer

As the indoor air quality of portable classrooms continues to stir controversy among area schools, the new North Park Elementary School is set to open in three weeks with seven new models made of concrete.

Workers this week continued setting up the lightweight concrete structures at the Saugus Union School District's newest elementary campus on West Sunset Hills Drive, a $9 million project to serve up to 900 students. About 600 students are expected to attend the first day of school on Aug. 18.

The portables will sit to the rear of the new campus, officials said.

Locating portables at North Park is not a result of enrollment projections that are expected to exceed the new school's planned capacity in the near future, officials said. Rather, it is to comply with older state laws that existed at the time the school was designed.

``There was a different state requirement under the old law, which changed in November. That law said that one-third of all classrooms in a new school had to have these portable classrooms,'' Saugus district Superintendent Gail Wickstrom said on Friday.

Plum Canyon Elementary also opened in 1998 with portables, but those were constructed with wood, she said.

The newer models, constructed of concrete shells with metal studs and exterior plaster shells, also will be placed at Mountain View and Cedar Creek elementary schools, construction manager David Richey said.

The decision from school officials to select a lightweight concrete version of the portable classroom over the standard, wood-framed models was not prompted by parents' concerns over whether several students had become ill with toxic poisoning during the school year from poor indoor air quality inside portables.

``The decision (to select concrete relocatable classrooms) was made in January,'' said Wickstrom, adding, ``That certainly was before these air quality issues came up.''

School officials based their decision on aesthetic reasons, Wickstrom said. She added, ``The goal was to make these portables, if we had to have them, better fit in with the design of the new school.''

State education officials and the lead architect both approved plans that incorporated the relocatable classrooms into North Park's design, she noted.

Richey said he didn't know of any difference in the structural integrity between wood-framed and concrete portables, or other advantages beyond aesthetic purposes or great differences in price.

It cost about $500,000 to purchase the seven portables, manufactured by Eco-Crete, which is based outside San Diego, Richey said.

Meanwhile, school officials, working with officials from the state Department of Health Services and Environmental Protection Agency and the district's contracted toxicologist, continue testing portables throughout the district's 13 schools from a number of angles, including their condition at the time of installation.

School officials this week said air and swab samples also would be taken from the two new portable classrooms at North Park Elementary School before schools re-open to students. Teachers are scheduled to return to work Aug. 16.

School officials reached on Friday said they did not know yet which classrooms at North Park immediately would be occupied and which would remain vacant until the school reaches capacity.

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PHOTO (Color) Steve McGuire, left, Travis Wharry and Ryan Nilson work on portable classrooms at North Park Elementary, which opens Aug. 18.

Hans Gutknecht/Staff Photographer