PARIS — The portable classrooms at Oxford Hills Middle School on Pine Street have been removed from the site.

Movers from Schiavi Corp. from Oxford loaded up the last of the seven portable units Thursday. Some had been there for 25 years.

The portables were sold by bids to three people for a total of $12,746, according to school officials.

Until the end of the 2012-13 school year, Oxford Hills Middle School housed 200 of its approximately 550 students in the portables on either side of the main entrance. Each unit had two classrooms.

Beginning this fall, the school’s 500 or so students will rotate their time between leased space on Madison Avenue in Oxford and the middle school in Paris.

The middle school was built in the mid-1950s, with an addition built in the mid-1970s. The portables were intended to temporarily address overcrowding, but began to fail structurally in recent years.

School officials looked at options last year but they were deemed too costly. Replacing the portables under a lease/purchase agreement would cost about $135,000 to $150,000 each, or about $1 million total. Renovating the portables would cost about $15,000 to $50,000 each, for a total of between $105,000 and $350,000 in local money, according to school officials.

The removal of the portable classrooms leaves the school lawn with seven cement pads.

It is unclear at this time how the new space and pads will be utilized.

ldixon@sunjournal.com

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