PARIS – Portable classrooms have become more permanent than portable at Oxford Hills Middle School.

The school has 12 portables, and at least half of them have been on the Pine Street school property for the past 12 years, Principal Hal Small said.

“The staff has adapted so well to the portables, that whether they’re doing reading, math, running overhead projectors, it’s just another classroom,” Small said.

The staff and SAD 17 have had no choice but to adapt to the classrooms, Superintendent Mark Eastman said. In the district’s last two requests, a new middle school did not qualify for funding because the state ranked the need too low, he said.

“They have reassessed the role of portable classrooms in schools,” Eastman said of the state Department of Education. “They don’t rate as high as they used to.”

At one time, he explained, the presence of more than a few portable classrooms at a school would increase the chances of new school construction funding from the state. Now, however, the state places higher ratings to schools with serious maintenance issues or air quality concerns.

In that regard, Oxford Hills Middle School doesn’t rate as high in terms of need because it has been well maintained by the district over the years, Eastman said.

Small said the 610-pupil school has received a new roof and a new gym floor in recent years. While he doesn’t see the need to replace the school, he’d love to see a new wing constructed with 10 to 12 classrooms.

A new wing would replace the need for most, if not all, of the portable classrooms, he said.

Small said two of the three seventh-grade teams are housed in the portables, along with the health program. There are some “minor inconveniences,” he said, such as the lack of lockers and the need to travel outdoors in bad weather to get to lunch.

The lack of science labs in the portables has also been a problem, he said.

But it’s rare to hear students complain about the portable classrooms, he said. Several of the district’s elementary schools also have portable classrooms, so by the time pupils get to seventh grade they are used to them, he said.

“I don’t think they’re looked at as being a big disaster. It’s just part of the program,” Small said.