A true xennial education wouldn’t be complete without these.
Posted by SlytherClaw79@reddit | Xennials | View on Reddit | 539 comments
Posted by SlytherClaw79@reddit | Xennials | View on Reddit | 539 comments
Gay_andConfused@reddit
Back in the early 80's I was part of the very first group of Freshmen who attended a brand new High School. It was a very nice campus, great teachers, nice equipment, etc. But Sophomore year, they had to put in a couple of these trailers. By Junior year, about half the kids were sharing lockers, and by Senior year, it looked like a trailer park out back, everyone was required to share a locker, and everyone was so packed together that everyone was miserable and fighting in the halls between classes was the norm.
scizzix@reddit
What I always loved is that these were intended as temporary buildings. Pretty sure my schools had some going back to the 70s.
They are a great example of accepting a temporary solution that ends up become permanent.
mysecretissafe@reddit
They still called them T-buildings when I was in elementary school. By the time I got to high school, they were just called their classroom number. Haha
Even-Education-4608@reddit
We called them “portables” I think
WholeLog24@reddit
Same, in AZ
limnetic792@reddit
We call them “learning cottages”. Mostly tongue in cheek.
Jaymesned@reddit
Portables in Ontario Canada too.
My school even had this "porta-pack" which was like 6 portables all attached with a hallway and everything. If there was ever a tornado we were gonners.
McBeanserr@reddit
My elementary school also had a port-a-pac for the primary grade classrooms. I remember it being dark, damp, and generally lined with wet boots and hanging coats and snow pants.
moderndayathena@reddit
We called them the same in Houston
vee_lan_cleef@reddit
Same here in PA. However, I will say ours were actually directly connected to our school, I guess they built a transition/hallway addition to make them semi-permanent and to keep the kids from having to go out in the elements just to go from class to the bathroom or anything else. They had good A/Cs and seemed, at least from the year I spent in one, to be pretty good. I get the impression we had some of the nicer ones though.
FuckYouChristmas@reddit
We had them in SC when I lived there, and we called them portables, too.
Dizzy-Tadpole-326@reddit
Yes, us too….NJ
Cinderhazed15@reddit
They used to have some where I work (before I got there). They called them TUBs, Temporary Ugly Buildings
gwyllgie@reddit
We called them demountables (NSW)
Yara__Flor@reddit
They’re tearing them out now due to declining enrollment in my district.
Pleasant-Resident327@reddit
My first classroom as a teacher was a portable from sometime in the 1940s. They demolished it in 2014.
doktorhladnjak@reddit
All the classrooms in my junior high school were these except for the main building containing the administration, locker rooms, cafeteria, music, home ec, and shop. Some were elevated and some were flush with the ground, but they all had those fabricated walls and shaky floors.
Bubbly-Fault4847@reddit
At least these were air conditioned tho (in my area). The old main bldg was hot as hell, but these would be so nice and cool.
alert592@reddit
Yeah, and they called them "portables" where I went to school. Pretty sure the ones are still there where I went to school
Chubbinson@reddit
At our high school they were literally called “temporaries.” I remember I had a history class in Temporary 2.
bootsnfish@reddit
In government there is nothing more permanent than temporary fixes.
TurdCollector69@reddit
It's not just the government. I've been and worked in a heavy industry and it's a thing everywhere.
The reason this happens is because nobody gets an attaboy for fixing something that hasn't broken yet.
It's really insane how short sighted we are as a species.
bootsnfish@reddit
No doubt. The problem is bureaucracy, but it isn't all bad. I had a coworker fall off a 12ft ladder because the A ladder was 10 years old. This was at a facility that handled an amazing amount of seawater.
Ever since then when I am asked to suggest a cost cutting measure I suggest a ladder inspection. I have a little story I tell and I got the one inspection done. All the ladders were fine. I had to explain why that was a good result and justified future inspections.
pinelands1901@reddit
The elementary schools in my hometown were slapped together with cinderblock and sheet metal in the 1950s "temporarily" to accommodate the Baby Boom. 40 years later they dropped some trailers in the back to add space. They finally shut those buildings down in the 2010s.
mnemonicer22@reddit
Those look like the nice ones.
RelevantFilm2110@reddit
My school district cycled through buildings. When there was a new high school, the "old" high school just became a "new elementary school". There were 4 grade schools in my district and each of them had been a high school at some point in decades past.
superdupermanda@reddit
My high school had temporary buildings (bungalows) from when the campus opened in the 1950s as well as newer trailer-style temporary classrooms from the 1990s.
They DID replace the bungalows with more modern trailers in the past 15 years! (And actually completed a new building in the mid-00's but the temps were still needed, I guess).
Da12khawk@reddit
You can even use them as housing!!!
NoFanksYou@reddit
We had these in the seventies
East_Meeting_667@reddit
That really was a sign of the times. 50 years later they still never built an addition just turned the practice field into a trailer park.
Fuzzy-Bird-3641@reddit
A school doesn’t have to be a beautiful big architectural masterpiece. The best education happens in the real world.
PaigeMaster89@reddit
The AC was always broken and we lived in a desert. I was so thankful when I learned I didn't have a class in one.
th3j4d3d0n3@reddit
and then BOOM - the second you graduate, the new school is built!
unknown00021@reddit
At my school, they put the bad kids in these. I was in one of those. And now I’m on Reddit. Look at me now Ms.Samson!!
Elle3786@reddit
It was all fun and games in high school, but I had these “huts” (still not sure why we called them that) in elementary school. I think there were 10 or 12 in 2 rows of 5 or 6. Not a ton, but just enough to blow my mind in second grade when I got class in one. I vividly remember the panic for the first week or so when I wasn’t entirely sure which of those identical buildings was mine.
Omg, ours were also so thin that you’d sometimes hear the kids in the one next door if they got loud. You’d just hear yelling break out next door because they were playing a game while yall were taking a test or something
Elle3786@reddit
It was all fun and games in high school, but I had these “huts” (still not sure why we called them that) in elementary school. I think there were 10 or 12 in 2 rows of 5 or 6. Not a ton, but just enough to blow my mind in second grade when I got class in one. I vividly remember the panic for the first week or so when I wasn’t entirely sure which of those identical buildings was mine.
Omg, ours were also so thin that you’d sometimes hear the kids in the one next door if they got loud. You’d just hear yelling break out next door because they were playing a game while yall were taking a test or something
misssurly@reddit
We have 3 of these at our elementary school ... They're back!
DivineAssistance@reddit
The outbuildings
Cross_22@reddit
My high school told us they would "briefly" use containers while they finish planning and building the permanent structures. I just saw in the newspaper that they have finished the permanent structures now - 35 years later!
chamrockblarneystone@reddit
OP we had these in the 70’s they were called “portables” for some reason. I just retired from teaching after 30 years and the portables are still being used. I went out there and thiught I was going to fall through the floor. But they did have a/c
Seattle7@reddit
We called them portables too. In elementary school we had one that was assigned to PE in the event of rain. This is where we would all try to smother ourselves in a parachute for some reason.
chamrockblarneystone@reddit
Cold War training.
tex1138@reddit
In my elementary school (Texas early 80s) these “portables” were only used for special education and remedial classes. How is that for stigmatizing children.
HungryFinding7089@reddit
They were called "mobiles" in the UK. Not very "mobile" because, as you say, they were meant to be temporary but my old junior school nestly 40 yesrs on still has the original ones.
WhyAreYallFascists@reddit
Our temporary ones from my childhood are now simply the permanent solution.
denzien@reddit
Public school?
Cross_22@reddit
Public school in Germany. In fairness the containers looked a lot nicer than what I am seeing in the US, but still..
flamingknifepenis@reddit
My school had a few of them too. It was always “just a few more years” until they built that new wing.
Twenty years later, they just knocked down the school and build a new one. In the meanwhile, they just hauled a shitload more of those shipping containers out onto the football field and just had all classes in those for the students that couldn’t be absorbed into different schools.
AncientLights444@reddit
That’s just sad. I thought 5 years was a long time
clutzycook@reddit
That was like my local public elementary school when I was a kid. They had the kindergarten in one of those buildings and it was only supposed to last for about 5 years. When the school closed down about 20 years later, it was still in use. They even added a couple more for some of the upper grades. Everyone wanted to be assigned to them though because they were the only classrooms with AC.
T2Runner@reddit
The AC in those were rockin' too. 🤣
DETRITUS_TROLL@reddit
Sadly, that's lightspeed in education bureaucracy.
RandomPenquin1337@reddit
Not just that, but population booms can effect things. Lots of city projects closed down in Chicago and all of a sudden there were thousands of displaced people. Many moved to the burbs where it was cheaper, and that influx caused our schools to explode. My graduating class in 07 had thousands of kids. Our ceremony took all freaking day, and that was still only about half of the kids that ultimately didn't graduate.
eastmemphisguy@reddit
07? You are in the wrong sub!
RandomPenquin1337@reddit
Maybe, but my wife is 45 so I need to connect with her on things
Psycosteve10mm@reddit
So you got yourself a millennial mommy.
RandomPenquin1337@reddit
thejaytheory@reddit
sortaHeisenberg@reddit
This post has crept its way up r/all, this sub has a bunch for new guests today. Including me. Way too young, but this is still funny, as some of these trailers were around for a long time
1pt20oneggigawatts@reddit
My area, Long Island NY, has the opposite effect going on right now.
During COVID a lot of rich Manhattanites moved out here as to not be caught in a too-crowded metro area during the pandemic. In response, Long Island started building up all the towns near the LIRR rail lines, adding all manner of apartment buildings, thinking work-from-home might disappear again, adding nightlife spots and new restaurants all along these strips.
In truth, they all moved back to the city (now people know how to make a right on red again!) and all these apartment buildings are empty, so are the million gastropubs that opened up... even on a Saturday night nothing is full.
Everything is overbuilt here. I'm waiting for these apartment complexes to get desperate and drop their rent.
SweetCosmicPope@reddit
Similar thing happened at the high school I graduated from. They built this nice new high school that was state of the art and just the right size for our small town. Then the following year, they rezoned the school and took over parts of the neighboring town, and suddenly this school built for 600 students had over a thousand students in it. Then the post-recession housing boom got started and now they have thousands of students and overcrowding issues. They're finally, like over a decade later, building a second high school.
Fortunately, all of this happened after I'd already graduated. I got to go to the school when it was brand spanking new and get the hell out after that first year.
Additional-Local8721@reddit
Sadly, that's government funding when they neglect education spending.
VotingRightsLawyer@reddit
It's interesting how this is somehow framed as "education bureaucracy" and not "we'd rather give billionaires tax cuts than fund new schools and teachers."
loptopandbingo@reddit
It can be both. The school district I grew up in had some incredible teachers who had zero help from the administration and board of ed which would drag their feet, stonewall on answers, let urgent requests sit on desks until they were forgotten, delay basic facility repairs due to cost but seemed to have plenty of funds for paying local good ol boys to come in on History Day to tell everybody how much better it was back when certain people "knew their place", and paid the head of county education an exorbitant sum for the time and place for being an utterly useless "let's circle back to that" empty suit. The ones pushing billionaire tax cuts and gutting public education are all too happy to point at a shitty administration as evidence that they need to do away with it entirely instead of improving it or steering funding where it needs to go.
Diligent-Resist8271@reddit
Agree on can be both. Usually is both. Our school district keeps getting less and less funding because the legislature keeps cutting funding (we are in a very gerrymandered state so despite our state voting all one way for the state leadership the other party holds both the state's house and Senate). All so they can give tax breaks to corporations. So less money from the state means we have to forgo certain updates (not even upgrades). Our intercom system is sadly so out of date (and our cameras and our database servers). But the school district just kept kicking that can down the road. Now nothing is supported and we are paying to upgrade the whole system, but it's costing in other ways. Every department last year had to cut something like 10% of their teams. And they laid off a bunch of teaching assistants and special education professionals. And they are still making cuts this year, all because they didn't want to update the infrastructure 5-7 years ago (when it should have been done) and not even 2-3 years ago when it NEEDED to be done). So now it HAS to be done to be in compliance and there is no money for it. Blood from a stone now.
svu_fan@reddit
Sounds like the town I graduated from. Small town but they were dealing with overcrowding… back then they only had K-6 elementary schools and one big 7-12 high school. The elementary schools were adequate with their populations and other needs (as there were like 3 of them at the time). The school board, the town, etc were all dragging their feet on getting a new 9-12 high school built and rezoning the existing 7-12 high school to become a proper middle school.
They FINALLY got off their damn asses when one of the buildings at the high school caught fire and burnt to the ground. THAT fire FINALLY speed ran the process of getting that high school built. And it was STILL four YEARS before the dang new high school opened. The building that burnt down housed the cafeteria, so that was cool. 😐
This happened when I was pretty little, so this was long before I was a student there. I attended when the conversion to a middle school was only a few years old at that point. The main building is now nearing 100 years old, on the historical registry and they badly need a new accessible school… they do not need another fire to finally speedrun the process 🫠
loptopandbingo@reddit
Are you in NC too lol
Diligent-Resist8271@reddit
Lol. Yup.
pienofilling@reddit
In the early 90s, my old primary school was finally readg to replace the temporary classrooms that sat by the Senior Playground.
They'd been built in 1947.
gizmosticles@reddit
Nothing is more permanent than a temporary solution
CoolBev@reddit
And nothing more temporary than a permanent wave. That’s what my daddy said.
jim789789@reddit
I sense you have a bright future in software.
Icy-Point58@reddit
Bro, that's all industry everywhere.
About a year ago, I was running a giant press. The pressure gauge suddenly dropped. I had maintenance come out and look. Turns out throughout the years as this pipe would crack they'd just weld it, then weld over the welds. To the point that when we got to it, it looked like a beehive.
14thLizardQueen@reddit
You made air come out my nose and make noise. I'm tired. Good joke.
Heinz37_sauce@reddit
As the great lyricist Neil Peart once wrote, “If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice!”
Mekroval@reddit
This is deep wisdom. Stealing it.
1pt20oneggigawatts@reddit
Oh this is when there actually was a Department of Education mind you. It's going to get much, much worse.
idle_isomorph@reddit
My sons' elementary school got rebuilt. After years crammed in a random and unsuitable building also owned by the school board, the beautiful new school opened
It needed portables classrooms from day one, because the size already did not accommodate the number of students. Facepalm
Vast_Philosophy_9027@reddit
And according to the original build standards
TSA-Eliot@reddit
When voters are too stingy about school funding, you do what you have to do to teach kids.
StragglingShadow@reddit
Hey, that is brief for bureaucracy
HopelessMagic@reddit
Lucky. As Seniors, they started tearing down sections weeks before we graduated. I was in a large competition choir group. We always practiced in the auditorium. Well, that's also where study hall was. They decided to start ripping out the chairs while we were in study hall in the room next store. Everyone in choir was bawling their eyes out.
Those were our memories they were destroying. They couldn't even wait until we said our final goodbyes.
EAComunityTeam@reddit
My HS still has the temp buildings. 25 years later. Seems to be cheaper than building the actual building
Bizaro_Stormy@reddit
Just checked my elementary school, they still have the portables, they even have more now...
chocki305@reddit
Lucky you.
My elementary school told us they are just temporary until the addition gets built.
What they really ment was "they are temporary and so is the higher enrollment". As no addition was built 30 years later. But don't worry, the paved the field so teachers could park their new BMWs in a nice lot. Instead of around the side near the dumpsters.
anjowoq@reddit
I've seen 'em in lots of places. This is because the US method of funding education is complete fucking bullshit. Every school area should have the money it needs to meet the needs of every student.
Basing something on the property taxes of the area is on purpose trying to ensure that poor kids get less.
Wobblycogs@reddit
I visited my old school last year, 40 years later they still have the temporary buildings that I learnt in. To be fair, they had been looked after pretty well.
Haemwich@reddit
Wow, that's fast.
rantingpacifist@reddit
They were only designed to be used 10 years and give off VOCs
Cachemorecrystal@reddit
While I never had to be in one, literally every school I went to got an upgrade only a few years after I left. My elementary was over 100 years old and they tore down and replaced it when I was in middle school. Middle school and high school both got face lifts the moment I left. There are even food trucks at my old high school now!
C-H-Addict@reddit
For us, they started the construction for permanent buildings after covid money came in... After getting those things in fucking 94
Mackheath1@reddit
Mine (large high school) built a new football stadium while we had a third of us taking classes in them for four years. Oh, and they're still there.
modern_Odysseus@reddit
My middle school had a couple.
My high school had several trailer class rooms. They didn't even tell us they were temporary. To us they just felt like permanent structures. But they had to bring them in because that school was wickedly overcrowded while they waited for a second high school to be built to serve the same area.
I know I learned AP History in one of them, and I think like a Health Ed class. I know there were others, but I don't remember them.
I should see what the school looks like now after these years. I know for a fact it has a much larger, very secure gated entrance. Go figure.
RIPTonyStark@reddit
We had them show up in middle school. The high school i went to shared a soccer field.
When i got to grade 12 they had built a new soccer field but added more portable classes that covered the old field.
Priorities. Hahah
Bitcracker@reddit
Yep, can confirm
valdus@reddit
They still do that. The elementary school my children went to has grown four of them since the last one left six years ago.
CCCat444@reddit
Didn’t they call these Pre-fab?
ZigZag82@reddit
Still happening here. I work in schools. The trailors are all full of new tech and furniture. Worth millions. Each teacher got 10k to get classroom supplies. While the building next door crumbles.
mountednoble99@reddit
I think the last time I studied in a permanent classroom in grade school was 3rd grade. 4-6 grades were all In portables!
Horndog_47@reddit
My 4th and 5 grade classes were held in these.
UnrealizedLosses@reddit
They still have these. Maybe even more now
ApexAzimuth@reddit
I’m 40 and my high school still hasn’t replaced the trailers.
TransportationOk657@reddit
Can't say I've ever seen any schools with these in the region I grew up in.
photoguy423@reddit
They didn't allow you to wear coats in school. You had to go outside to get to the trailer park classroom in the dead of winter without a coat.
chaosTechnician@reddit
"80s & 90s?" "True xennial?"
The Elementary, Middle, and Mid-high schools that my kids attend right now all have trailers. This is just normal.
RWDPhotos@reddit
The very ones they brought in new when we were kids, which is what the post is getting at.
chaosTechnician@reddit
How do you know when the portables at my kids' schools were set up?
RWDPhotos@reddit
They were being brought in to many of the schools in my county when I was a kid. Seems it was common around the time. Don’t think it matters when yours specifically were brought in.
chaosTechnician@reddit
...Except those were the ones I was talking about that you referred to as "the very ones they brought in new when we were kids."
Portables as a concept are older than us. The portables I was talking about are newer than the ones we had. The point of the post is to imply that they're an 80s and 90s construct. It hinges very specifically on when mine were brought in.
RWDPhotos@reddit
Didn’t say it was only happening back then, only that it was pretty common to have them installed around that time.
“This was very common in the 90s”
“Not for me!”
Good for you!
5pens@reddit
Yep. Our local middle and elementary school have these today.
pdxcranberry@reddit
Yeah I went to frickin' college last year (I'm a late bloomer) and had a couple classes in these things. I was genuinely crushed to have my adult collegiate dreams of sitting in a big sunny mahogany-clad lecture hall replaced by these freezing fluorescent modular monstrosities.
chaosTechnician@reddit
Hi fellow late bloomer! A couple of the colleges I went to had them, too. One had a set for classrooms. Another had the testing center built out of, like, a triple-wide trailer.
Hope college is working out (or worked out) well!
ScooterScotward@reddit
I’ve taught in one of these the past eight years, lol. Millennial teaching zoomers and I guess maybe Gen Alpha now. Finally getting a real room next year though!
storm-000@reddit
I was gonna say gen z had these too 😂
IceSmiley@reddit
Yea I see those still. I think the person who posted this lived in a high growth area when young and it has slowed down since.
Nikiaf@reddit
One of the schools near my place converted most of the schoolyard into portables just 2 or 3 years ago.
drunk_responses@reddit
Yeah, depending on where you are, this is more of a 2000s or even 2010s thing that is still ongoing.
chaosTechnician@reddit
The person who posted it has never seen a portable. That picture is the result of some really bad AI generation.
UnluckyCardiologist9@reddit
Yeah. I remember these in elementary school in the LA area but not so in high school. Shoot my elementary needed up turning into a kinder-8th grade school by the time I hit high school.
_ficklelilpickle@reddit
LOL yeah my daughter did her grade 1 year in a demountable.
Also known in Australia in the construction and mining industries as a “donga”.
evenyourcopdad@reddit
I bet 90% of schools of any grade level around the country have at least one.
We call them "portables" in my part of the country.
AggressiveTea7898@reddit
Yep that's what we call them where I'm at, too.
chaosTechnician@reddit
Same.
slaybelleOL@reddit
I was gonna say... Both of my kids' current schools have portables.
slothbuddy@reddit
We're at the age where we have to take extremely normal things that happened to us and say it makes us special. There was one on here a couple days ago that said listening to mix CDs made us badasses
chaosTechnician@reddit
You're not a true human if you didn't share in my precise life experience. If you did that sucks, and I'm sorry that you went through all that.
captmonkey@reddit
Yep, they just added some to my daughter's school. The school is crowded and they're planning on expanding, but that takes time and money. Bringing some portables in to fill the gap is cheaper.
The funny thing is I was at a meeting about the expansion and there was a mom there who grew up here and went to the school in the 90s. She said they had brought in portables back in then before the last expansion was built on the school. They're literally reusing the same area for portables as they used to have.
pinkocatgirl@reddit
Yeah my schools growing up never had these, but at some point in 5e 2000s, the elementary school I went to got one.
Tangential_Comment@reddit
Pretty sure the ones we used were used by the boomers too...
DangClever@reddit
Nothing like the sound of the floors creaking for every step you took in there. Also there were 2 types of teachers in portables. Ones who enjoyed them and were always relaxed because the principal wouldn't make a trip out there and the ones who hated them because they felt like they were disrespected by them and made our lives hell
Gishra@reddit
My schools growing up never had these. My elementary, middle, and high schools each had expansion projects for additional classrooms that added new hallways to the schools and were completed in under a year. Meanwhile, my son's elementary school currently has these.
mdmommy99@reddit
I always see this posted as if they still don’t have these. Kids are still being educated in shipping containers in my area every day.
Critical-Weird-3391@reddit
My elementary school had one of these for the "emotionally disturbed" kids. They'd send us over for an hour every day to draw pictures that "tell a story" and other nonsense thought up by a recently-graduated future HR person. I remember drawing a veteran in a wheelchair under a tree with a vulture waiting to eat him...that apparently caused some problems.
CoverCommercial3576@reddit
Yep
DrawTap88@reddit
After just getting out of high school and getting a job with an excavation company, I helped dog the holes for the foundations of some of these structures. That was in 2001.
SoloMotorcycleRider@reddit
There was always a funky smell in those portable classrooms. It reeked of feet and mildew.
OurHouse20@reddit
Also the floors didn't feel really solid. At least in our portables, you could feel the floors sink a little when you walked around in there. Cheap shit.
Sugar_Fuelled_God@reddit
When I was a kid they had us sing this dinosaur song, I don't remember the lyrics except "Here comes the Brontosaurus, stomp, stomp, stomp", and when the song said what the dinosaur would do then the kids would act it out too, but instead of stomping I jumped on the floor as hard as I possibly could, one day I went straight through that flimsy floor and it was hilarious, even the teacher was nearly pissing herself laughing, good old Mrs Harris the music teacher, literally lived around the corner from my house and I stayed in touch with her up until she passed away 12 years ago.
So yeah those floors sucked, but that memory will last a lifetime. lol
Edit: BTW, for reference I was the smallest kid in my class, and sure I've always been freakishly strong for my size, but still I was 7 years old and tiny, so it really didn't take much to break the floor.
Pseudorealizm@reddit
I was in one of those portables when we got hit by a 5.0 earthquake. Felt like a real brontosuarus was doing the stomp song.
Frederf220@reddit
They were also paper thin so it took massive 747 engine AC units just to keep them tolerable.
gwmccull@reddit
My school used one for the weight room. They must have done something to reinforce the floors because it wasn’t too creaky but you could feel it give a little when you walked around
AAA515@reddit
You couldn't sneak, you heard every step
C4bl3Fl4m3@reddit
Not in ours. Ours had air conditioning with a thermostat in each classroom, unlike in the main building where they had terrible HVAC flow and you were at the mercy of whoever set it for the whole school!
(This was the late 1990s) We also had phones & Internet computers in each of them. And they were connected by decks and it was always nice to go outside to get some fresh air between classes.
Honestly? We liked them way better than the rest of our HS!
hafirexinsidec@reddit
That carpet glue really helped lull you to sleep though.
DigDugDogDun@reddit
My school must have had brand new ones then. Unpopular opinion but I really liked being in our trailer classroom. The carpet was new for sure and there was a sterile but pleasant smell that I really enjoyed.
SoloMotorcycleRider@reddit
You were lucky.
PocketGachnar@reddit
Oh yes, Louisiana public high school in 1999, these things had no AC, only fans the teachers had probably bought with their own personal paychecks. The humidity was so bad that walking into one of these mildewy trailers was like walking straight into soup.
electrictower@reddit
They still do this. Wtf are you talking about
forgetfulsue@reddit
This is happening where I live now. Single and Multi family housing is blowing up, and rather than build new schools, they’re putting up trailers. No body had the forethought to take schools into the equation when all of these new developments were planned.
-Ghost83-@reddit
They got turned into the ISS building when I was in school.
Comet_Hush510@reddit
We had these but they were on a hill on poles and provided great shelter to smoke camel cigarettes or molboros.
DustOne7437@reddit
In the 70’s too. They were considered cool be cause you weren’t in the same building as the security and principals.
physical0@reddit
Look at these fancy kids with their concrete sidewalks. We had a wood chip path.
PitchLadder@reddit
Luxury!
We used to have to get out of the lake at six o'clock in the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of hot gravel, work twenty hour day at mill for tuppence a month, come home, and dad would beat us around the head and neck with a broken bottle, if we were lucky!
prof_the_doom@reddit
And AC for the trailers. You can tell this is the rich neighborhood.
courtneysjournal@reddit
Ours sloped upward both directions.
balding_git@reddit
ours were dumped on top of what used to be the student parking lot
PrincessSarahHippo@reddit
The ones at my first high school were just gravel and mud. So much mud.
BlueDaka@reddit
My grade school in the early 90's had them, and I always wished I would get classes in them because one of them the teacher had made the interior look like a log cabin complete with stuffed heads.
denzien@reddit
These were at my kids' school for years until they raised enough capital to build actual buildings
Huntleigh@reddit
The entirety of my 5th grade was in portables. Good times
Lostarchitorture@reddit
My middle school, it was so common to have classes in portable buildings that the only classes not in them were science lab classes, gym, music, and electives (like shop or home ec classes).
There were so many, it was continuous portable buildings on both sides as you walked through a good 500 feet distance between each end.
They finally passed a back-up bond issue at least, a decade after I left, to build at least one permanent hallway. Still had a good twenty classes in portable even after that, unfortunately.
Jsemlebest@reddit
We still have those in our schools here in my district. The bungalows.
KermitMadMan@reddit
our school added trailers and built an outer layer of classrooms. often we’d have to go through a class to get to another class.
if you were late you’d get evil looks from the teacher whose class you’d walk through.
TraditionalTackle1@reddit
Out Catholic HS just put us in the old wing of the school that was torn down soon after I graduated lol.
AlchemistMustang@reddit
Yeah, loved when the wasps would build nests under the walkways. Good times, FL.
kg51113@reddit
I never had these. My elementary school did use some alternative space for a bit to fit everyone. That was for the grades a little bit ahead of me. I was around 1st grade when they broke ground on an addition to the building. The building went through multiple changes over the years. Additions, new buildings adjacent to the old one, demolishing old buildings, connecting newer buildings together. They built another elementary school because we had so many kids. By the time I had a school-age kid, they were closing buildings or shuffling things around. What once were grade level classrooms, became rooms for things like speech or reading interventions.
Slammogram@reddit
They still do this. Schools get more funding when they get trailers. This is why.
PleiadesNymph@reddit
From 6th grade to community college for me lol
Lanky_Republic_2102@reddit
Yup, in my day there was a double wide trailer where they put the behavioral problem kids.
It seemed to be a plan where if you skipped school you got out to school suspension and after a while they would basically say “Why don’t you drop out?”
The girls who got pregnant in HS were confined to the cosmetology department to be kept out of sight.
And the “trailer kids” were kept segregated from the general population.
AncientLights444@reddit
Those were at my school until 6th grade.., at least I got 1 full year in the new building
Upper_Equipment_4904@reddit
We were always excited to have a class in the portables, only because the heat and A/C worked in them 😂
ViceroyFizzlebottom@reddit
I grew up in a dying Midwest town. There was a wing and floor of my high school that were closed down and abandoned due to low enrollment.
blawblablaw@reddit
They still do this.
trulyuniqueusername2@reddit
My kindergarten class was in one of those. Until Insaw this post, I had not acknowledged that I learned to read in a trailer! 🤣
Klutzy-Delivery-5792@reddit
Was in these for 3rd and 4th grades.
aenflex@reddit
We never had had those. I never even saw those until I moved down south. Small town, I guess.
D2Dragons@reddit
Nothing like shuffling between these during a blazing Texas school day, going from 60 degrees to 105 and then back again repeatedly. Because nothing makes kids enjoy education more than feeling queasy by the end of the school day. 🤢
captainmidday@reddit
"Portables" ... the above ones are utterly high tech. Air conditioning? Why? You can learn wet.
CulturalIndication1@reddit
I worked at my old middle school last year, they're all still there lol.
testingforscience122@reddit
Um they still use these at almost every school in our county
T2Runner@reddit
Hahahaha, growing up in California, I was well used to being in these for school.
Vegetable-Floor-5510@reddit
They still use them, or at least they did a few years back when my kids we're in middle school. This was in a really wealthy school district too!
PheesGee@reddit
My niece graduated from a school that used these while the old school was being completely redone. The senior class had shirts made up that said, "Trailer Trash Class of 2016." The administration was not amused, but I was!
Sidehussle@reddit
When I first started teaching in 2001, I was in a portable. I had to haul water for pig dissections. 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Sidehussle@reddit
My school had a portable bathroom. It was nicer than the main school. LOL
Previous-Locksmith-6@reddit
I remember these in 3rd grade, supposedly temporary but had been there for 20 years already. Last I heard the school found a way to reuse them by combining them together.
Metzger4Sheriff@reddit
Best part about being in a portable: you get a water cooler with the little triangle cups since there is no drinking fountain.
Necessary-Depth-6078@reddit
Best part for me was when teacher kicked me out I was just alone outside. I used to climb on the roofs and bang on the windows. Retrospect though, it must have been tough figuring out what to do with me.
Metzger4Sheriff@reddit
That must have been hilarious for your classmates, but I'm sure in retrospect they all realize how effed up it was for your teacher to just send you outside.
Necessary-Depth-6078@reddit
Yeah, eventually they had me meet weekly with the principal. I’d get stickers on a calendar and once I collected enough he’d give me pogs and marbles.
_SmashLampjaw_@reddit
And air conditioning that just blows hot air!
tobethesky@reddit
Walking over to the real school, up the loading dock, and into the cafeteria kitchen to get milk and a cookie was one of the best parts of kindergarten in a trailer. Being the line leader was the highest honor.
Deathgripsugar@reddit
You had water in yours?!
LOOK AT MR MONEYBAGS WITH WATER AVAILABLE IN HIS CLASSROOM.
Metzger4Sheriff@reddit
FWIW, we also had to eat lunch in there instead of the cafeteria for some reason, so maybe that was part of it?
PrincessSarahHippo@reddit
What! That sounds inhumane. Being in the same four walls all day as a kid. I'm glad you survived.
Metzger4Sheriff@reddit
Well, we would swap to the other portable for two classes a day, so not technically the same four walls 😂
Deathgripsugar@reddit
Ours were just a trailer with no water, but it was for preschool/kindergarten only.
melanthius@reddit
Cold as fuck water from a cooler into paper cone cups, nothing else hits quite like it
PrincessSarahHippo@reddit
Not in my school system! I was in portables intermittently from second grade to tenth and never saw a water cooler.
Metzger4Sheriff@reddit
I'm sorry :(
Tangential_Comment@reddit
Core memory remembered! Thanks!
freexanarchy@reddit
I went to a brand new high school. The planning had been in the works since the 70s, and I was class of 2000. So when we opened we were at 110% capacity and had those trailers in a few places. But one time I visited like 5 years after I graduated and half the parking lot was now trailers. It was insane.
bigheadjim@reddit
Gen-Xer here. They were using these in Florida since the 70's! I think the same ones are still there.
vintage_seaturtle@reddit
Living in tornado alley added a little razzle dazzle to having portable buildings. Always had to run into the main building while carrying our thickest book(history) to cover our heads.
TechNomad2021@reddit
My elementary school burned down in 1996 and they just dumped some of these off in a different schools yard calling it our new school.
davwad2@reddit
We had these at my elementary school. Hurricane Katrina destroyed them, probably relocated them in the process. My homerooms in third and fifth grade were in these too.
burndata@reddit
And 2000s, and 2010s and 2020s... This isn't something specific to the 80s and 90s.
Remote_Bookkeeper139@reddit
I was in one of these in 2010
Diseman81@reddit
We had them in my 7th and 8th grade years. They were used for about 10 more years until another school was built. I think they used the trailers beyond that though.
Boring_Pace5158@reddit
The cool part is they had air conditioning.
thejaytheory@reddit
sonic_dick@reddit
Didn't help much in Florida. Those things were always in the 80s by mid daym
gwmccull@reddit
They were the only rooms at my high school that had AC. I loved those rooms
arafella@reddit
Yeah we joked about hiking all the way over to the bungalows but it was pretty nice in the afternoon when it was hot out
Over-Conversation220@reddit
Your bungalows had AC? Mine never did. Always “broken”
densetsu23@reddit
Yeah, in high school in May and June we would often have class outside. It was too damn hot in those things compared to the cement walls of the rest of the school.
And this was in Canada, six hours north of the border. I'd hate to feel then south of the border without A/C.
jelloshot@reddit
I loved having classes in the portables for this reason.
TechnicalEntry@reddit
Ours did not, they were stifling.
thejaytheory@reddit
This looks exactly like my 5th grade year.
Minimum_Run_890@reddit
Those are nice! We had essentially a garage package with plywood interior walls and a window.
eklect@reddit
Yeah, but those ACs in them... 🤌
Mallaceis@reddit
I had trailer park classes in 2015. Gen x really gatekeeping school construction
Irishpanda1971@reddit
Ah, the "annex". Nothing like baking in one of those in late April/early May.
DrewDAMNIT@reddit
😂😅😂🤣😭😁😆😅💯🙌♂️🤯🇺🇸👌🐙
Another_Road@reddit
They still do this.
IWantAnE55AMG@reddit
We had two for our school and it was for the sixth grade classes. I gotta admit that I loved them. The only annoyance was having to walk across a frozen tundra in the winter when I had to use the bathroom but the heating and AC always worked great so it was a comfortable learning environment. Maybe having a kickass 6th grade teacher who nurtured my love of math and science made 6th grade better as a whole.
FakeNamePlease@reddit
This still happens…
Darkest_Rahl@reddit
Half my grade 7-13 classes were in portables. Weird seeing my old schools without them anymore.
themajordutch@reddit
Lol yeaaaa...those one look actually luxurious.
eastewart@reddit
We called it “The Annex” becuause, you know, that sounds better than “The Trailer”
Echterspieler@reddit
I tell people I had the one room schoolhouse experience. 4th grade I was in one of these. Loved it. They even had AC while the main school building didn't.
Rocketime86@reddit
They still do this
A-HoleGoose@reddit
We called them “ bungalows.” All the elementary schools I attended used them for after care because they were easy to find for the parents and were right next to the playground.
Harlzz11@reddit
As a kid I loved the portable classes, they felt so uniform and neat plus often had A/C
Now I get to teach in one and I still love it
chiquimonkey@reddit
GenXer here… went to school grades 4-6 in a portable. Totally
Sillylittletitties@reddit
They had that in the 2000's as well
Kareem89086@reddit
Nothing like Gen x claiming something as there’s when every generation for the past 70 years has experienced this
Shoehornblower@reddit
Ah yes…the “annex”
chubbuck35@reddit
They still have a ton of these at my kid’s high school
Same-Photograph1926@reddit
We also had these for in school suspension.
InappropriateWaving@reddit
Xenniial+. This is still happening now.
Gren57@reddit
Who cares? At least you got an education and you weren't sitting on dirt floors.
ketosoy@reddit
I learned calligraphy in one of those. One of my favorite classes ever.
Bones_Alone@reddit
God dude everyone before genz thinks they were the ONLY ones to experience this
Silver_Rate_919@reddit
Kids used to throw rocks at the windows in my school. They were empty a lot of the time so no one got caught, and every week new smashed windows
KN0TTYP1NE@reddit
Never had these
Piranha_Vortex@reddit
In the late 80s into early 90s California, my Gifted And Talented Education classes were in the "portables" as they called it. Didn't mind because the classes were fun. I imagine it was a cost-effective way to add classrooms with heat/air conditioning.
brightcroissant@reddit
Air control? Not in my day!
wango55@reddit
Ah yes - what our schools referred to as "the portables". My 4th and 5th grade years were spent in these. The silver lining was that they had air conditioners!
twim19@reddit
They are still around. Portable Learning Environments. When your already cramped school gets a big influx of students, they gotta go somewhere.
I actually taught in one of these for a few years and LOVED it. Always had warning before someone came into my room and I could control my own heat and air.
zodiackodiak515@reddit
I went to high school in the mid 2000s and my high school still had these
Dwashelle@reddit
I started high school in 2004, had prefabs the entire time. I graduated 15 years ago and they're still there today. This is in Ireland, a supposedly very rich country, lol.
deepee45@reddit
They still do this. Both of my kids schools have a bunch of portables.
salami_on_a_bagel@reddit
Lol these "temporary" trailers were added to our middle and high schools and I'm in my 40s now and they're still there
flyingcircusdog@reddit
And they still do.
Celestial_Scythe@reddit
My priavte school had two of these. One was for band / instruments storage. The other I had a world histroy class in.
Momps@reddit
best part is they were the only AC classrooms
Used-Sun9989@reddit
I was in the grade JUST ahead of this. They constructed them and put up the 9/11 fencing... to stop terrorists or something?
CaptShrek13@reddit
Unsupervised children traversing between buildings outside always seemed to be sketchy. At least in my experience. I seemed to witness an occurrence of some kind once a week in middle school.
Peetweefish@reddit
These are still used in Texas. Source: All of my kids' schools have had them.
Knightfires@reddit
Not only trailer parc kids. I remember these as temporary buildings when our own classes were cleaned.
Nickyjtjr@reddit
All 7 years of grade school. All 4 years of high school. What did they used to call them? Portables? I forget.
kodiakjade@reddit
Can confirm. Attended a rural 300 person highschool and I had geography class in one of those, taught by a guy who was also the wrestling coach…and the football coach. We spent half the semester watching the entire Shogun mini series.
BardByGoogle@reddit
Yep, in 1990, I started at a brand new school which consisted of one actual building that included school office, library, cafeteria and kindergarten classrooms. EVERYTHING ELSE was master planned for portables.
Ten years later, the school has expanded to include the district GATE program with additional portables added.
It’s been 35 years now and all the original portables are still in use. I sometimes wonder how long they can go before the whole school is useless.
dominator5k@reddit
They still do this
AshDawgBucket@reddit
Our computer lab was in a trailer!
AbusiveUncleJoe@reddit
This was the superintendent's office at my HS
solemn_penguin@reddit
My daughter graduated high school a fee years ago. Her school was still using these
TempusFugitTicToc@reddit
I LOVED these growing up. They were the only rooms in middle and high school with AIR CONDITIONING
SchemingEunuch__@reddit
Nothing xennial, this is just how it is.
MISSFMD1992@reddit
How are u?
Ok_Researcher_9796@reddit
I went to school in south Florida. Running to these things in heavy downpours was always fun.
Hunt3141@reddit
TBF these started in the 1960s
dangerfog@reddit
Modules they called them instead of trailers lol.
New_Morning_1938@reddit
We still have these where I am.
mastrofdizastr@reddit
These were called portables and they were the best on hot sunny days. The only classrooms with air conditioning. The classrooms in the main building had to do with opened windows.
FlashyG@reddit
my school had a portable gym
Blank_Canvas21@reddit
I remember we had those pods and I was wondering what the hell they were for. Come to find out they were for the in school suspension students, I found this out my first day of ISS lol
DeaconBlackfyre@reddit
We got a creepy freaking room in the shitty basement at my HS.
wytewydow@reddit
I had science and math classes in those in 7th & 8th grade.
SBSnipes@reddit
*whispers* they're still doing this today
ruiner9@reddit
Ah yes, we called the. “The Portables” at my high school. A parking lot full of barely temperature controlled classrooms that smelled like mildew and mothballs. What a lovely memory.
ODShowtime@reddit
I had 6th grade in a trailer and it was great. The room was fine, but the key was we had a spring water dispenser. You'd run around like crazy at recess, wear yourself out, and then chug water from the nasty old water fountain. But us upper-classmen got to enjoy that delicious, ice cold spring water.
Good times.
FelangyRegina@reddit
Still building new ones AND still using the ones installed in the 90’s!
rshana@reddit
These are currently being installed at my daughter’s middle school and she’ll spend 8th grade in one while they renovate the main school.
UhmbektheCreator@reddit
These still exist you know, not just a history thing.
Shuatheskeptic@reddit
Why do people post this shit like this isn't still how it is. Don't any of you have children of your own?
Miserable-Lawyer-233@reddit
Schools still do this now.
lordravenxx@reddit
I definitely had some classes in these. Both elementary and middle in southern California. But none in high school.
sesaluna@reddit
I always thought this was just my school district
AgeingChopper@reddit
Same in the UK. Several of my classes were in huts.
AelixD@reddit
Our not-poor district has 8 elementary schools in it. They each had 10-12 trailer classrooms before the community finally voted to build a new elementary school. 5 years ago.
TheAskewOne@reddit
There were a few of these in my school. It was in the damp South, and they were moldy as hell. And smelly.
OldRancidSoups@reddit
We didn’t have these on Long Island where I grew up. I never saw these until my son started going to school in Baltimore county.
DannyLameJokes@reddit
They closed a school in my neighborhood. Now the classes are held in like 15 of these in the parking lot.
Artysupport7757@reddit
These were called the "portable classes" in my primary school. Never saw them moved anywhere.
Spiralwise@reddit
I went to a CS college that totally looked like a construction site. A learn so much and I own everything I know in programming so don't judge a book by its cover.
DangerousYoghurt3187@reddit
They're still here
spandexvalet@reddit
We need a public holiday for teachers
bigpapasmurf_666@reddit
We had those in the 70's
justadude27@reddit
honestly better than an overcrowded room
tiny_chaotic_evil@reddit
ah yes, the permanent temporary classroom
therealpopkiller@reddit
I think 50% of my classes were in portables
Somethingisshadysir@reddit
We had one of these as our DMV for at least a decade before they actually built a new building.
Bertybassett99@reddit
They work and they are cheap.
StarWarsLvr@reddit
Ah the annex buildings
trilobright@reddit
I suspect this was more of a red state thing?
rookinsmoke@reddit
Still did this in 2000s EU
Haemwich@reddit
Didn't see a trailer park class until college but I went to school in Philly where there wasn't endless open space to just plop down new structures.
gyrlonfilm6@reddit
They still used them at overcrowded schools.
Last-Salamander-920@reddit
In the midwest, we had plenty of old schools laying around. This seems like a west coast solution.
Due_Adeptness_1964@reddit
Shit, everyone wanted to be in these units in Nj, cuz our school district never had AC units in the classroom, but these did. It was like winning the lottery, esp since schools didn’t conclude for summer until mid June due to snow days.
Phoniceau@reddit
lol the “temporaries” at my middle school are still being used 30 years later 🤣
CjBoomstick@reddit
No one could find a non-AI picture? Jesus, the children look like demons.
EconomyProcedure9@reddit
Don't think I ever had a class in one of those.
i_machine_things@reddit
Ah, the portables that became permanents...
qualityskootchtime@reddit
8th grade we got the bungalows…1992
platypusbelly@reddit
Those look a lot nicer than the ones I got to have classes in
DOCTORTC@reddit
I always wanted to have my class in those. We had 2, all my friends got to be one. I only got to watch a movie there once.
Baercub@reddit
The trailers in my middle school were for the special needs kids from the very low functioning to high functioning 😔. I was one of the high functioning kids with autism and being a trailer kid meant you were ‘special’ and therefore ostracized from the rest of the school.
AdministrativeBank86@reddit
We had portables back in the 70's too. Now we have schools being closed due to lack of kids.
One-Earth9294@reddit
This was such a suburban thing when I was a kid.
Thankfully my elementary school was and old awesome art deco building
They never fucked around with trailers when I went there. When we moved further away from the city though... that school did.
DocWagonHTR@reddit
I spent all of 5th grade in one of these at a nice Christian school.
kmckenzie256@reddit
My mom said they had these at her high school in the mid ‘70s even
Jidori_Jia@reddit
Blew my mind visiting my college roommate from Central Florida on our first school break. She drove me by her high school and it was just a bunch of these trailers.
Being from a midsize city in the Northeast, I literally had never seen that before.
will_never_comment@reddit
Same happened in the DC metro area. My grade was cursed and kept getting kicked out of every building for a renovation that would finish just as we moved to high school or graduated.
I only saw these trailers later in life in smaller cities and rural areas.
Uncle_Guido1066@reddit
I coach youth football, and we practice at school that has six of these bad boys parked out back.
awesome_possum007@reddit
They have these today still
uplate2much@reddit
It worked so well I still live in one.
LandMooseReject@reddit
Is this some horrible educational practice I'm too Canadian to understand?
redfalcondeath@reddit
My elementary school had these for 5th and 6th graders. I always thought they were nicer than the regular classrooms because they had carpeting and seemed newer.
12thMcMahan@reddit
Sadly, most are still in use.
One_Consequence_4754@reddit
We really had classes in trailers…The concrete steps maid seem so normal, Lol.
User9705@reddit
This still happens. Happened to my daughter’s new school of 5 years of age.
andybrwn@reddit
60s and 70s too
IndependentHearing21@reddit
I remember this too well 😂
duckbutter888@reddit
Those container had the most crisp AC units. After recess, that crisp cold air was a god send.
Blenderx06@reddit
They added some to my school just after I graduated. They're still there!
VashMM@reddit
My high school was so overcrowded we had 11 or 12 of these on campus, and they still had to bus us 9th graders to a separate building across town for English and social studies.
Lollerscooter@reddit
This is uniquely american
ossman1976@reddit
Randy!
atomsforkubrick@reddit
And they called them “modulars” like we could be duped into believing they were somehow cool and futuristic
brittanynevo666@reddit
Yep. I'm 34 and my school did this lol.
ShutYourDumbUglyFace@reddit
My entire middle school for 6th and 7th grade was portables while they built the building.
yogtheterrible@reddit
The funny thing is a new school was built after I graduated because all the schools were well overcrowded and using a ton of these portable classrooms but apparently they somehow underestimated the number of students that would be attending so the first day it was open they had to bring in a dozen of these things to accommodate everyone.
Relative-Advance-578@reddit
My school didn't have them due to location (right in the middle of downtown, no room to expand) so I've never been in one.
secretbudgie@reddit
I drove by my old school, now the portables line the front lawn too.
CalgaryChris77@reddit
They have way more of these now then back when I was in school.
Cephalopod_Dropbear@reddit
The annex! Super fun going to the annex in a Minnesota January.
math_math99@reddit
Had this in school back in 2005 too
askaboutmynewsletter@reddit
Ah yes, "The Annex"
Lint_baby_uvulla@reddit
Hah. In the 90’s I worked at TAFE in a low socio economic area and when they needed classrooms, the chippie student’s assessment was to build demountables. Half were used, half were sold, and when the students complained, my job was to delivery 3 full pallets of alcohol every Friday afternoon from 2pm (student restaurant also).
90’s OSHA was .. fluid
TheJokersWild53@reddit
My K-8 school only used theirs for the skills support classes.
The_Sum@reddit
Ha.
The true horror is having to take a poo in the bathroom. EVERYONE knows what you're doing and will smell it. We had 2 kids that constantly made it a running gag to just take the nastiest smelliest dumps to annoy the classroom.
Also winter sucked because they don't keep these deathtraps heated over night and they have about a cardboard box worth of insulation in the walls so the first 3 hours of every morning was everyone in their jackets complaining and shivering while the teacher is huddled over their coffee for warmth and life.
Which should go without saying that summers were atrocious because these didn't keep cool either, I remember the principal coming in several times to tell the teachers to stop turning on the A/C even though the room was 85F.
My favorite was spring until the windy weather comes and these structures suddenly don't seem all that secured to the ground and you hear every creak and the windows wobble.
You know, these things just sucked.
Traditional_Entry183@reddit
I was actually completely unaware of this until I met my wife and she told me about it. My home town had undergone a major building and renovation program with the schools in the 60s and 70s, and my grade school and high school were about the same age as me, while my middle school was one of the old high schools before consolidation, and was built in the 1920s.
I don't know how or why they got the funding to do all of that, because the city has been shrinking since the late 1800s, and the Boomers were leaving in droves, so there weren't going to be as many kids in the future. My high school had over 2000 students 10-12 when it opened in 1976, and by the time I started there, they were down to under 1500, so they switched to a 9-12 system and I was part of the first freshman class to get back up to 2000. Now my sister teaches there, and they're at 1200 students 9-12, and always shrinking.
Rawesome16@reddit
They just took these out of the middle school meat my house last year
thenzero@reddit
Holy ai generated karma farming garbage Batman
cathode-raygun@reddit
We called them "portables" at our elementary school.
bmur29@reddit
Same. And for some reason it was cool if your class was assigned to one.
street_parking_mama2@reddit
My kids go to a school that is less than 10 years old. They just put these in last year....
Petraaki@reddit
And now they're closing schools, guess they made the right move in not building new ones in my home town
MisRandomness@reddit
Dang I feel lucky now to have gone to schools in a city that only had large brick and concrete buildings like in the movies.
BeBopBarr@reddit
Grew up small town PA, moved to CA. Never even knew these were a thing til I moved to CA and my kids started school. We didn't have these (and still don't) at the school I went to.
ipb121@reddit
And that’s why I am the way I am!
ZeldaHylia@reddit
They cal them portables in Florida. I had them throughout my childhood even at the new high school that opened my freshmen year. The rule here is that the portables have to be full three times over before they build new schools. It’s stupid of course, but that’s how it’s always been.
SweatFestReferee@reddit
Learned intros from elementary to high school!
FourScoreTour@reddit
I worked in a factory for a few months, building those things. Massively overbuilt, to withstand earthquakes I guess.
Gnarlodious@reddit
We had those in the late 60s, they were called Portables.
Writerhaha@reddit
“The new school is coming, just go to the portables for a bit”
3 years later the school gets built.
icanhascheeseberder@reddit
I went to sixth grade in a "portable" building. It was actually better because it had AC and the school building didn't.
RylosAU@reddit
We had these at the schools that I went to here in Australia, but we called them 'Portables'. The primary school that I went to only got rid of them about 10 years or so ago.
Rosserman@reddit
Prefabs
lunchboxdeluxe@reddit
I loved ours. It actually had proper air conditioning.
punkdrummer22@reddit
Why do people keep.posting this? Portables still exist
12InchPickle@reddit
The AC in these units blasted so hard tho 👌
RedSolez@reddit
I work in school trailers right now!
TalesByScreenLight@reddit
They just removed those from the elementary my kids go to after a new elementary to handle the overpopulation of kids. After 20 years, the kids finally have a soccer field.
Mister_Poopking@reddit
True story. The middle school I went to in my small rural town was built in the late 1800s. By the time I was taking classes there, we could literally claw chunks of mortar away, Andy Dufresne-style with our bare hands, and the floors had subsided so much that they had hills and valleys. Only when it became blatantly obvious that students and teachers lives were in imminent danger did we get to take classes in temp trailers while they tore down that old death trap.
Designer-Bid-3155@reddit
Definitely not a thing growing up in my area. Didn't see these until 2010ish and only in the city
SausageBuscuit@reddit
I helped do some landscaping work at an elementary school that was built 5 years before (2018 vs 2023) and it already had trailers. It’s like they said “Fuck it, out of funding. Trailers for the last third.”
Sensitive-Issue84@reddit
This started in the U.S. in 1970's. We had the same ones in N. California
Impossible-Front-454@reddit
Damn they looking actually kinda nice these days. The older fuckers i dealt with could barely stay less than hot in Las Vegas heat.
NCC74656@reddit
ive never heard of this. although i will say my schools nickname was the cake eaters so... *shrug*
ExplorationGeo@reddit
When I was touring local high schools to find one for my daughter, I found a school that had portable classrooms, but then got rid of them. I took that to be a very bad sign that no one wanted to send their kid there, and it turns out I was right.
I'm not going to say the name of the school but if you google " scandal" you get results for several different ones.
Ok-Payment5950@reddit
They were called portables strangely enough. There was an advantage, though that they had air conditioning built in.
cantwejustplaynice@reddit
In Australia we called them demountables. My son should be sitting in one right now.
daniellaroses1111@reddit
Goes right along with the Garbage Pail Kids.
Ecstatic_Scene_8493@reddit
Yet another thing GenZ had that you think we didn’t. I took four years of French in one of these bad boys
kicking-chickens-jk@reddit
I was in a trailer classroom in rural USA and in middle school (2000 ish) I was in one of these. I always felt so cool tbh, like we were the special kids and had our own building.
OkieRising@reddit
I feel attacked
f14_pilot@reddit
My school still has em 20 years on.. hilarious
Whatsanalterego@reddit
Email from my school admin today, encouraging teachers to leave the building and voluntarily relocate to portables. “These bungalow style classrooms have the benefit of independent climate control, a porch and easy after hours access without pesky alarm codes.”
rickitytick@reddit
Portables
doorbell19@reddit
There’s the week of on school suspension for you!
superficialdynamite@reddit
I was the first class to move into the BRAND NEW middle school portables! No joke. Whole school, at least 6 portables.
GoblinPunch20xx@reddit
As a TRUE Xennial, I had to go to one of these trailers in the parking lot for Sex Ed…it was awful. Truly, truly bad. In the age of D.A.R.E. and all the nonsense and conflicting messages they were pushing at that time, I think it made me dumber…
Good thing my dad worked for Trojan and my uncle worked for Playboy. So I got a great education on how it all worked in the conventional sense and how to be safe. Too bad for them I turned out very very 🏳️🌈🌈 🌈ALL the colors…no flag can hold me lol I’m so confused, STILL lol
NW_Forester@reddit
Our elementary school building was set so classrooms had no windows. So I greatly preferred the portables to that.
thetieflingalchemist@reddit
I went to school in the 2000's and I was in these fuckers
Dizzy-Tadpole-326@reddit
In the late 60s they were called “portables”….which remained for at least the next 20 yrs
TorontoScorpion@reddit
I'm a Zillennial I remember these at my elementary school in Toronto
pm_me_your_grumpycat@reddit
Yes!! Elementary, middle, and high school all had these. Yet people think I’m crazy when I talk about portables 😂
timthemajestic@reddit
Yuppp. lmao It's crazy in my hometown's case, too, because we have always been small. My graduating class had 41, and most others were very similar. I think my whole hometown population was, and still is, like ~2000, but when I hit high school, all of a sudden they had these things rolled in. I was, and am still, so befuddled as to why, but who knows. Still funny to think about.
Round_Ad_1952@reddit
Never had containers, just went to school in buildings built in the '20s and '30s in rural Iowa.
UmbreonTrainer27@reddit
These things got so HOT!!! Am I alone on this?
Kizenny@reddit
At least they had functioning HVAC.
TechnicalEntry@reddit
If by HVAC you mean baseboard heating and tiny windows that barely opened, then yes.
tillyspeed81@reddit
Oh I hated the classes that were out behind the soccer fields in BFE…
Rampasta@reddit
Don't worry they still do that. I teach in a so called "Mod"
Doa-Diyer80@reddit
A local high school spent decades buying up all the adjacent properties so they could expand. They brought in some of these portable classrooms and left like half of the acquired lots vacant. They decided to build a new school on the edge of town.
Then the geniuses decided to build a roundabout with crosswalks at the same corner. Every morning traffic is a shit show. We have dumbasses that don't know how to use the roundabout, parents stopping in the middle of it to let out their kids and traffic backing up for half a mile in all directions.
gnrlgumby@reddit
For some reason they put all the honors / AP classes in those.
Adventurous_Pen2723@reddit
Heyyy I failed algebra II in one of those.
eatelectricity@reddit
The suburb where I grew up was definitely growing faster than they were building schools at the time. Grades 3 through 6 were almost entirely in portables for me.
Frowny575@reddit
I remember all my schools called these "temp buildings". Pretty sure they're still there 20+yrs later.
queuedUp@reddit
They didn't put a paved sidewalk... You maybe got some gravel if you were lucky
fugu_me@reddit
We had something similar in Australia, we called them portables and they did not have AC
Ok_Knowledge_8314@reddit
My schools, the special education was placed in these places - because in 1988 when the disabilities act was founded, many schools were not prepared, placing us kids with "Learning disabilities" which today can be determined by ADHD, Autism, Bipolar, schizophrenia, or Trauma, etc. They just initially placed people in sections of A level, B level, C level and D level (being uncontrollable) - This created a dysfunctional education for those of us having to go through it. At least today, these "dysfunctions" are now well known, giving children "Like myself then" an opportunity. MKy children both have their situations, but because they were treated better, they both are above level in thier current grades and both prepared for collage level credits by 9th grade. I know they are lucky, as this funding of education is being stripped away from their younger friends.
stargarnet79@reddit
Junior high! Winters sucked shuffling from trailer to trailer.
TheOffKn1ght@reddit
They still do that
KSamIAm79@reddit
And the AC sucked!
redsunglasses8@reddit
Yeah, my kids still have to deal with these.
RoyalZeal@reddit
The ubiquitous bungalow. Half the schools I went to growing up had at least some of these (and I went to a lot of schools, we moved a lot).
American_Greed@reddit
Portables! Fourth and fifth grade in these, and then many classes held in these during high school.
FunkyChewbacca@reddit
my school was so underfunded we didn't even have these LOL
bechard@reddit
I can't get past the terrible AI generated image of kids walking past a portable. Either this is Eldritch horror, or really really bad ai art.
balding_git@reddit
especially since theres hundreds of pics of the things all over the place. taking the time to ask AI to make this is so weird
bechard@reddit
Yes, that explicitly is why this low effort AI "art" shouldn't be allowed anywhere. Take ten seconds and find a real photo that doesn't look like hot trash!
bwaarp@reddit
Yellow shirt kid’s pants appear to have fused with blonde ponytail kid’s pants.
GSG2150@reddit
The parents shut them down at our school. They through a fit because these portables are close to an off-ramp feeder of a highway. They claimed that exhaust fumes are dangerous for the kids, but no issues with the playground behind right next to the portables. Then they fought that was too far from the main school building. Their saving grace was when a car coming off the ramp crashed into the school fence.
grpenn@reddit
Well, I’m a Xennial and I never experienced one of these. I feel a bit cheated now.
tdktn0@reddit
No AC or heat either.
-Bk7@reddit
I grew up in a middle class hood and never saw these. Now as an adult I moved to a much higher affluental neighborhood and all the public schools had these and i was surprised. Then I realized all the rich kids went to private schools and the public schools didn't get the funding
LivesDoNotMatter@reddit
Cool. Didn't know they had AI image generation back then!
AlwaysTheIntrovert@reddit
We called ours "The Barn". It was a fitting name.
Late-External3249@reddit
My school never had these. The high school covered a huge rural area and was built to accommodate a pretty huge amount of students. The areas population has been in a slow decline for ages so we never hit capacity. The largest graduating class was my youngest sister's in 2008. Then they started getting smaller.
Any-Professional2762@reddit
Our collection of these were called "The 9th Grade Center."
koei19@reddit
Also in the 2000s, 2010s, and 2020s. Not really a generational thing at this point
pinkocatgirl@reddit
This is what you get when you fund schools via property tax, no one wants a tax increase so the levies fail. Cash strapped school districts can no longer build expansion wings or new schools, so they get these trailers to handle the volume of kids on a budget.
Practical_Breakfast4@reddit
So much for "temporary"
bakedin@reddit
I always liked those classrooms. They were clean, had A/C, and a certain smell to them that said 'new'.
brakeb@reddit
those building were where the Special education kids went...
anniemdi@reddit
A lot of that is that they were accessible compared to the older permanent buildings. While I don't necessarily agree with self contained special education classes for all special education students, as a physically disabled student I certainly would have preferred an accessible building with accessible drinking fountains and accessible restrooms.
brakeb@reddit
Now that you mention it, I remember my elementary school, and yea, the lobby had stairs, so makes sense they could go around the building to the rooms with ramps
Agreeable-Chart-5561@reddit
My high school had a few and then they had to bring in more because the pregnancy rate was so high they needed a place to keep the all the pregnant girls in one spot so they didn’t have to climb stairs and walk far.
Serious-Fondant1532@reddit
Those are way more fancy than the 80's and 90's portables. We didn't have air conditioning.
this_knee@reddit
I’m from the trailer park science class kids.
bgva@reddit
"The portables" as we called them. I live in a suburb that grew faster than city council anticipated, so I think just about every school had at least a half-dozen portables outside. I think they were designed to be temporary, but AFAIK they never expanded the middle school so they're prolly still there 30 years later.
Frequent_Alfalfa_347@reddit
I didn’t come across these until the mid 2000s when i moved to Texas. They are definitely a prevalent and permanent fixture here.
I went to school in rural NY. I lived several places in the Northeast.
I’ve always assumed this was a location-based issues, not generational.
mrs_krockOdile@reddit
Ahh 6th grade! I loved being out there away from the main school building. Our classroom has a cat!
IntermediateState32@reddit
In the Fairfax County (VA) School District, they built a new high school, Westfield HS in 2000. The day it opened, it had, and still does have, 4 trailers.
Rough-Associate-2523@reddit
My entire 6th grade experience was in conjoined trailers. Each class had their own but you could walk to the other toward the front.
jennylou303@reddit
My sixth grader spent the whole first semester of this year and one of those. ...oddly I never did. They just never updated our school 🤪
Rare-Philosophy-8415@reddit
This is an AI image. Doesn’t that bother anyone?
artrubian@reddit
We called them relocatables in our days. Didn't phase me one bit of the name relocate. It was our other classrooms. They never relocated.
jimlahey2100@reddit
I liked classes in the trailers. The AC was always cold and there were less distractions.
specks_of_dust@reddit
A quick Google Maps check of my high school shows that they are STILL THERE.
bwaarp@reddit
We had a few of these at my elementary school. One of them was the Stinky Portable, so christened because it was a portable and it was stinky.
I no longer remember my twelve times table or the name of Canada’s second prime minister, but I will remember the parmesan-cheese-and-wet-dog smell of the Stinky Portable until the day I die.
QueerTree@reddit
I hate to tell you this but these are still standard.
c1h9@reddit
We have countries to bomb, that shit is more important than raising up the next genius.
Admirable_Bank9927@reddit
I don't know why but I was jealous of the kids that could go to the Portables. Never had a class out there.
Kimothy80@reddit
I went to the same elementary school K-3 and the only time I wasn’t in a portable classroom was in 1st grade. I can still hear kid-Kimothy’s tiny feet stomping up those metal stairs to enter the room!
Dangerous_Midnight91@reddit
My high school still has ‘em and the same one’s still dedicated to “study hall” and detention according to my friend’s kid.
whatthemoondid@reddit
Yep my high school had those. Downright treacherous in the (ohio) winter. One year my homeroom was out there, it was the worst
Illuminihilation@reddit
I got sex ed in the trailer behind the school.
You heard me.
BrattyTwilis@reddit
My schools never had these, but there were some schools in our district that did
Advanced-Ladder-6532@reddit
They still do this. My kids last year of elementary school was entirely in a mobile school. There was an emergency structural issue and the school had to be rebuilt. It took most of the areas mobile buildings to pull off for 3 years.
OJimmy@reddit
These were freezing cold and wind made them vibrate loud as a lawnmower sometimes
Kellbows@reddit
Our local school still has these. I believe they are a permanent addition.
HeywoodJaBlessMe@reddit
This says more about our current lack of a healthy demography than anything else. We don't see as many trailers today because we don't need them now. Kids are becoming more and more scarce.
Hsv_me_256@reddit
But had the coldest AC when the rest of the school didn’t
NGinuity@reddit
I still see these everywhere today.
Beautiful_Debate_114@reddit
I loved my little trailer park classes in the back of the school. We had a really cool social studies teacher who had board games and would let us play at the end of class if we listened to her lecture and did the worksheets. 9th grade. Good times
SissyWasHere@reddit
Yep! 😂
lyricweaver@reddit
Flashback! First had class in one in the fourth grade (home room).
ZedPrimus84@reddit
Elementary, Middle, and High School had these damn things.
ileftmypantsinmexico@reddit
They used these when i was in school in the 70’s
Spartan04@reddit
I never had portables at any of my schools. The schools weren’t new, not even close, but we never got to needing portables.
My mom was a teacher in a different district though and did have to teach in a portable one year when they were building a new school. It did have one advantage I can remember, the portables had air conditioning while the main school did not.
Mother_Echo4502@reddit
My high school put them in while I was in elementary school. The high school is still using them.
Crayola_ROX@reddit
I remember these. Now that trailer park is a whole new wing in my high school
FWitU@reddit
You must not have kids. They still pull this shit
justpassingby_thanks@reddit
The walkway from the "portables" to the main building was the only way to sneak back in undetected from an unsanctioned lunch excursion. Better yet one set had a bathroom, so if you timed it right it was easy to get into the portables bathroom then bell change without anyone knowing you left. Seniors were allowed to leave, but had to check out. Just leave through a close enough door to the senior door and you're just a kid walking away from campus. Come in through portables during class change, we were never caught and our friends in the other lunch periods did it too. This particular scam worked for two years across 3 lunch periods.
We were nerds though and didn't skip actual class. That was in Middle school. I skipped so much middle school...
Western-Corner-431@reddit
We had these in the 70’s
analogthought@reddit
I can still smell the mildewed carpets and hear the rusty metal door
CountryKick@reddit
And they all had giant a/c that you always froze in those portables.
eastmemphisguy@reddit
That was the best part of having class there. It wasn't hot af like the rest of school. My elementary didn't even have ac, aside from the portables.
Practical_Breakfast4@reddit
Same here, it was the only ac we got and we loved it!
Practical_Breakfast4@reddit
The ONLY air conditioning in the whole school!!! Fuck yea!
wtfever_taco@reddit
I wonder if what we called them was regional. For us (NJ) they were called "modules" but I'm seeing a lot of you call them portables or trailers
sambashare@reddit
My high school had about 8 of these outside, all in constant use as classrooms. In all honesty, they were nicer than many of the actual classrooms in the main building, since my school was built in the early 70s and had a horrible design. I swear, you literally had to walk through classrooms to get to other classrooms. There were walls where there shouldn't have been, and none where there needed to be some. Going outside for a few seconds to get to your classroom was no big deal by comparison.
MonkeyTraumaCenter@reddit
I currently teach in one. It's wonderful. Nobody bothers me out there.
grunge615@reddit
Our school said they hauled these in to show everyone we needed more space before a bond was up for consideration. I had classes in portable buildings all four years of high school. They renovated 6 years later when my younder sister was a student.
BoisterousBanquet@reddit
The elementary school I went to implemented these about 1988. I drive past that school when I visit and they're STILL there.
SweetCar0linaGirl@reddit
My kids elementary school still uses them. All 4th & 5th grade classes are out back, in these trailers.
CrossFire_tx@reddit
I had class in them in ‘92, then almost 20 years later, I ended up teaching in one. It’s fine until that A/C Unit kicked in. Then you might as well did sign language to teach and learn. I’m
Krymestone@reddit
My whole 4th grade was like that. So odd, but also workable.
moles-on-parade@reddit
My high school had eight of these my freshman year. By the time my brother graduated seven years later, it was up to twenty. Awesome.
johnvalley86@reddit
My fellow gifted students and I would be sent to the trailer at my school. It was actually kind of sweet because it was way bigger than a traditional classroom so we could keep our Rube Goldberg machine set up and all sorts of other things that we had created out on display
Petersens_Arm@reddit
I lived in a trailer, I learned in a trailer, I earn in a trailer.
1radgirl@reddit
The worst was that these classrooms at my school didn't have heat or a/c! In Utah. The teachers relied on dumb little space heaters and fans. How was this acceptable??
alien-1001@reddit
My BRAND NEW highschool had portables. What the fuck.
Mwiziman@reddit
This was preschool for me. Mrs. Twist
WildfireJohnny@reddit
You’ll be shocked to know that this didn’t end in the 90s
Far-Cockroach9563@reddit
They still do
upnytonc@reddit
My kid’s elementary school was built 20 years ago, and they have these trailers for different classes.
bsmithcan@reddit
This is what our school system is doing in British Columbia right now.
Dylan_Is_Gay_lol@reddit
Only one grade was cursed to the hot portables in my school, and it was the third.
Bomb-Number20@reddit
My school bulldozed some of our bathrooms to make space for portables. Such ridiculous logic, if you need more classrooms, you need more bathrooms.
A_Walrus_247@reddit
Our school was so poor we didn't even get these things. 40 kids to a classroom
Classic-Month-5184@reddit
Only attended one class in the magical portable.
My crush was explaining that, if you say elephant foot, without sound , it looks like saying I love you.
Sal_Paradise81@reddit
At my private Christian school they brought in modules after trying to raise money by extorting the families of students (who were already paying an absurd amount in tuition, even by today’s standards) for money “to further the Lord’s kingdom” with a brand new main building. When THAT didn’t pan out like they’d hoped, they spent the rest of my hs career admonishing students passive aggressively for not “meeting God’s needs”. Interestingly, it turned out the pastor of the church and adjoining school was removed and prosecuted for embezzling like 80% of those funds…
Mr8BitX@reddit
I had my math class in my senior year of HS in one of those. Our teacher was a hot mess. Married 3-4 times new one was a Russian bride, whiskey in the coffee, ect. One girl in class quickly caught on that he would adjust the homework and tests based on how far he would fall behind with his lectures so she started asking him personal questions. Eventually we all caught on and basically made it a 45 minute chat with the teacher about his mess of a life. We all passed, we almost never got homework, it was one of my fondest in class memories of those years...........I really struggled with the math portion of my SATs.
sauvandrew@reddit
Running across to the main building in the middle of winter to use the bathroom was such a treat
uwu_mewtwo@reddit
in hindsight it was a smart move for lots of these schools. enrollment is down all over.
boolpies@reddit
I am so glad I never had a class in one of these, I was legit scared of it lol. I heard they were really uncomfortable.
A-Druid-Life@reddit
And the air conditioner didn't work in half of them...........in central Florida.
PrincessSarahHippo@reddit
I still remember the day when someone glued all the locks on the portables at my high school. I had home room in one of them and they hadn't managed to open them up yet, so we all just milled around.
arcxjo@reddit
At my school that was the day care for students' kids.
MSNFU@reddit
Schools still use that shit. It’s not generational at all.
Global-Jury8810@reddit
My elementary education was nothing but portables the entire time I was there.
I went to three different elementary schools due to moving in my early childhood. Our Lady Star of the Sea, Brownsville, and Tracyton. Tracyton was the school with the portables, and that school was shut down not too long after I finished high school.
ProfessorOfLies@reddit
They still do
BlackPhoenix1981@reddit
The biggest lie is that they would only be there for a few semesters. Maybe a couple years at most. Shit, and I see them to this day and I graduated almost 27 years ago.
TalesFromMyHat@reddit
Still do. Local Jr High has 13+
RiverHarris@reddit
Yup! Those were fun. You could crawl into the ceilings.
RJRoyalRules@reddit
My freshman year of high school, our class was so big that we were the inaugural class of the "freshman campus," which was just a set of portables about a half mile away from the main campus. I remember listening to the OJ verdict on someone's radio as we walked to main campus!
NotRustyShackleford_@reddit
They still do!
Powerful_Wombat@reddit
Yeah, maybe it depends on location but all our schools around here still have them. We live in the suburbs and the area is growing faster then the schools can keep up
thedumone@reddit
The old buildings were no better. AC never worked and the had to use those crazy 10ft poles with hooks on them just to open the windows which didn’t even help.
povertyandpinetrees@reddit
My mother taught special education for a number of years at a school here in North Louisiana. There was so little budget for special education that the school board had a barracks building from an old world war II airfield nearby brought in and put on cinder blocks behind the school. They had to run an extension cord from the main building to the special ed building for them to have lights. Whenever it started raining they had to rush to bring the extension cord back inside. The roof leaked like crazy. My mother and the students froze in the winter and roasted in the summer. Eventually the school board moved some classes around and they were able to come inside. Within 2 hours of them moving inside the city came and condemned the old barracks building. It was torn down the following weekend.
FriskyDingoOMG@reddit
2 kids at my school BURNED one down to the ground 😂 Both convicted of arson, rightfully so.
superjosh420@reddit
I started at a brand new built high school freshman year and we already had these because they didn’t plan for enough students in the first place.
paracog@reddit
They had these in SoCal as far back as the 60s. No AC.
Charles_Mendel@reddit
I was in one all of 5th grade.
VectorJones@reddit
I went to 2 elementary schools in the '80s and a junior high in the early '90s. All 3 schools built these classrooms while I was there and all 3 are still using those same classrooms in 2025.
owen-87@reddit
We won't build you a new school, but here's some sidewalks and ramps to assist you accusing our cold smelly learning boxes.
Go learn trailer children.
Andrew____74@reddit
Before this they'd cram more kids in the class. Deal with this, semi sane teacher!
To0n1@reddit
My mom taught in one, and I had so many classes in one of these
LMurch13@reddit
My Kindergarten and 6th grade years were in a trailer.
pinelands1901@reddit
The elementary schools in my hometown were slapped together with cinderblock and sheet metal in the 1950s "temporarily". 40 years later they dropped some trailers in the back to add space.