The trailers are located in between the playground and the baseball field in front of the Jamestown Elementary School. Photo Contributed
Arlington — Members of the Jamestown Elementary community voiced their concerns at a School Board meeting May 25 about the installation of trailer classrooms in a field in front of the school.
The trailers were installed May 18, and the members of the community who spoke before the School Board said the only notification they received was a memo sent after installation.
Assistant Superintendent of School and Community Relations Linda Erdos said she didn’t know if there was no notification of the trailers’ installation, but that she knew it was late.
The speakers made it clear that they took issue not with the use of trailers, but with the lack of communication and with the location of the trailers, which speaker Dan Russell said made the field in front of the school look like a “used car lot.”
Rick Morris, who also spoke about the trailers, has lived across from the field in front of the school with his family for 21 years.
“During that time, we’ve seen two additions in the school,” Morris told the School Board, “and we’ve seen various trailers come and go; but, always in the past, there was an opportunity for people in the neighborhood, the people who lived around the school, people in the community, to work with the School Board, to work with the staff to find solutions that best fit the problems.”
After all the speakers had finished, Superintendent Dr. Patrick Murphy responded: “Folks, I wish I had an easy solution. The fact of the matter is, there are more of us in a smaller space, and so we’re going to have to be able to adjust to that.”
According to the April 2012 Capacity Utilization Chart for Arlington Public School, Jamestown’s capacity without the trailers was 597 students, and 636 students are currently enrolled, which means the school was running at 106.5 percent capacity.
A public discussion about the trailers is scheduled for May 31.