Say NO to Portables at Maple!

The Seattle School District is considering putting portable classrooms on the grounds of our school. We are united and strongly opposed to placing portable classrooms at Maple Elementary for the following reasons:

Ø The levy funds for our 2006 remodel were specifically designated for removing the portables.

Ø Maple is an open-concept building where teaming and collaboration are a vital and prescribed part of our curriculum. With portables, both teachers and students in a portable would be physically cut off from their grade team resulting in an inequitable distribution of supports, resources, and opportunities for both teachers to team and students to work cooperatively with their classmates.

Ø With our large population of ELL, the support of our ELL-supporting staff is designed to address the needs of handfuls of students collectively in our open-concept classrooms. To provide the same level of support to students in a portable will result in not only an inequitable distribution of resources but the possibility of some students unable to receive these services and support at all.

Ø We have three PCPs , which allow our teams of teachers—with three classroom teachers per grade level—common planning, meeting, and team-building time. An additional classroom likely will result in that classroom teacher not having the opportunity to participate in that common planning, meeting, and team-building time with his/her teammates.