Though Anne Arundel County school officials have met the mandate to provide all-day kindergarten, they struggled to find additional space for their youngest students. Along the way, the number of portable classrooms more than doubled.

Now Superintendent Kevin M. Maxwell and the school board are working to reverse that trend - and are seeking to put all students in a school under the same roof.

The county school board recently approved design plans for construction at five elementary schools - Broadneck, Central, Crofton Woods, Hilltop and Windsor Farm - that would create more classroom space and eliminate the need for portable or relocatable classrooms.

"It's not an ideal situation for anybody," said Bob Mosier, a spokesman for the county schools. "We'd certainly like to bring those children back in the main building."

In response to the Thornton Commission's sweeping study on the state's education system, the legislature passed in 2002 the Bridge to Excellence in Public Schools Act, which required all of the state's 24 school systems to implement full-day kindergarten by the 2007-2008 school year.

Though school districts received increased state funding over three years beginning in fiscal year 2005 to pay for the initiative, it was not enough to cover the $26 million facilities expansion in Anne Arundel, said Alex L. Szachnowicz, the chief operating officer for county schools.

The state provided partial funding for the hiring of new teachers and the purchase of textbooks and other materials, but it did not provide money for the construction of classrooms, he said.

"We would have a teacher, but not a classroom," said Szachnowicz. "This full-day kindergarten thing just really sprung the number of portables up over night."

The number of portable classrooms in Anne Arundel increased to nearly 100 in 2004 to about 250 now.

Parents have long complained about portable classrooms, which from the outside resemble mobile homes, pointing to safety and weather concerns, said Anita Owens, the county PTA president.

School officials have added fencing around the portables at most schools and have mostly relegated upper-grade students at elementary schools to the classrooms, which are typically sited within steps of a main school building.

"I think some parents think it looks like a prison yard sometimes," Owens said. "I would rather have the fence there. They're frustrated.

"I think in a perfect world the parents would like to have the additions or have a new school building that would hold all the kids in one building."

The county's proposed $219.3 million capital improvement budget for the 2009-2010 school year contains $14.4 million for kindergarten additions at the five schools. Each of the schools would receive at least five new classrooms, with Broadneck, Central and Windsor Farm slated for six.

Around the region, other school systems have struggled similarly under the mandate with an increase in the number of portable classrooms.

In Harford County public schools, which have an enrollment of about 38,000 students, there are 105 portable classrooms, up from 82 three years ago.

Teri Kranefeld, a spokeswoman for the school system, said the advent of all-day kindergarten was a "contributing factor" to the increase in portables, but she also pointed to a spike in enrollment.

The Carroll County school system took a different approach to dealing with the all-day kindergarten requirement, said Ray Prokop, the director of facilities. Since the mandate, the school system has completed classroom additions to 10 schools and is building three more.

Prokop said the county has 124 portable classrooms throughout its roughly 28,000-student school system, and only about two or three of the structures were added in response to all-day kindergarten.

"As an organization, we decided that we were able to do brick and mortar," Prokop said.

For several years, Hilltop Elementary in Glen Burnie had just one portable classroom for music class, which served the school well considering it is an open-space school and the level of noise required for music instruction would likely prove distracting.

But with an influx of kindergartners needing the use of classrooms all day, the school brought in three more portables and began ushering its gifted-and-talented and special education students to the outdoor classrooms.

"It's a quieter place for some of our students, so it serves them very well," Principal Louise E. DeJesu said. "But I'd rather have all my kids inside the building."