Your ministries are growing which is good news. But the bad news is that you lack enough separate areas to handle more Sunday School Classes, the new Day Care Ministry and all other programs common to growing churches.
You do have large open areas in your gymnasium and fellowship hall. Can these possibly be utilized to help with your “growing pains?”
This was a very difficult question to answer prior to the late ‘80’s. Thanks to the creative work of a church architect who dealt with the growing needs of churches for years, his idea was to build versatile, flexible, portable room dividers which were made of sound absorbing, tackable panels and were easy to use. Open areas can now easily be used by two, three or more different ministries all at the same time. The most widely used line of these dividers folds for storage to fit in an area no larger than an office chair, storing them is easy. All dividers use hard rubber casters so they easily glide from one area of the church to another.
Freestanding, Wallmount, and Portable Classroom are the three basic lines of Portable Room Dividers in the family. Like the auto industry each line has different makes, models, and options and the same is true for the Portable Room Divider industry. Here are some details as to the differences and which line of divider best satisfies certain needs within a church.
The Freestanding line is the most popular line of Portable Room Dividers for growing churches. It is a self contained divider which does not need to be installed in tracks in the ceiling or floor for support. Freestanding dividers can be rolled easily into position in the Fellowship Hall, Gymnasium etc. Once in place, a simple latch is unlocked and the dividers unfold “accordion style”. They can be set up in virtually any configuration, the most popular is a simple straight line, or with one ninety degree turn.
Why is this line of dividers the most popular? The answer is simple, its freestanding condition with casters allows it to be rolled from one room to another, or from one part of the room to another part in seconds. A growing church can use these dividers to subdivide the Fellowship Hall in the morning for the Child Care and in the afternoon, the dividers can be used in the same room to create separate areas for the Men’s and Women’s Clubs which need to use the room simultaneously. In the evening the divider can be rolled easily out of the Fellowship Hall and into the gymnasium where they can be used to create several classrooms for Bible Study. It is amazing how participation in classes increases when students, children and adults alike have the privacy of their own classroom!
An example of how Freestanding Room Dividers are used is Cannaan Baptist Church in St. Louis, Missouri. Their large, high school gymnasium was absolutely perfect for sporting events, and their Sunday School/Bible study ministries were growing. Could the large, gymnasium be quickly turned into classrooms, and back into a gymnasium for the youth sports ministry just as quickly? Yes with versatile, flexible room dividers. Every Sunday morning the teachers simply roll out the dividers into the large gym from their storage area and set up 20 Sunday School Classrooms in minutes. When class is over, the dividers are folded and rolled away to be used during the week to make efficient use of the space in the Fellowship hall where other programs are held.
Church leaders know sometimes that they will need versatile, tackable, sound absorbing dividers in the same room for many years. It’s been shown that the number of classrooms needed and the approximate number of students remain reasonably consistent. In this situation Wallmount Dividers can be the divider of choice. One end of the Wallmount divider is mounted to a wall where the folded panels stay in their stored condition. In this situation the wide open room and can be used for choir practice or any other ministry requiring open spaces. When the room is needed for class or for any other purpose…blood drive etc…the dividers are unfolded easily on their casters and set up in the desired configuration. Wallmount Dividers are more economical than Freestanding Dividers, but since one end is fixed to a wall they lack the mobility of the former.
Lastly, what do you do when your church is growing and needs dividers to provide the privacy for a class, a markerboard to be used during the lesson, and a cabinet to store the Sunday School materials? You could buy all the component parts separately. But, the most popular method church leaders use to combine all of the above is the Portable Classroom line of Room Dividers. Just imagine rolling piece of furniture with a height of approximately 6’6”, the bottom half is a cabinet with adjustable shelving where materials can be stored. The top half is a 42”x36” markerboard for writing. Now, where are the dividers? Cleverly concealed inside two hidden chambers…one on the left and one on the right side of the cabinet are where the dividers reside. To access the dividers simply roll up the Tambour doors on either side. Once the tambour doors are open you can easily extract 16’6” of the versatile divider out of each chamber. The total dividing capability of the Portable Classroom is amazingly 37 feet (a 4ft. wide cabinet and two 16’6” tackable dividers). For those who “want it all”, the Portable Classroom line of Portable Room Divider is just what you need.
There are 3 basic lines of versatile flexible room dividers administrators of churches use to help manage their space in an efficient, economical fashion. Each divider comes in a variety of heights, lengths and colors to match the needs of any church:
1) Freestanding: can glide easily throughout one room or from room to room. The divider unfolds in seconds in any configuration that you desire.
2) Wallmount: likewise unfolds in seconds in any configuration that you desire…with one end affixed always to a wall.
3) Portable Classroom: combines a storage cabinet, markerboard and a total of 37’ of dividing capability in one beautiful piece of equipment.
If you want to get the most use out of your valuable floor space while your ministries are growing at the same time, consider versatile, flexible room dividers!
Divide and Conquer
A Santa Monica Boulevard Charter School was using file cabinets to separate a large multipurpose room into a technology center, storage area, and one on one learning environment for special education students. After doing a quick search on the internet, the school found an affordable and also timely solution to their problem. Screenflex Portable Room Dividers.
Like many other schools in Southern California and across the nation, Santa Monica Boulevard Charter School was very cramped for space. File cabinets were being used to separate one large multipurpose room into a technology center, storage area, office, and one on one learning environment for special education students,.
“Needless to say, it wasn’t working,” said Linda, the Coordinator at the school. “Students could see right into the other work areas and it was very noisy and distracting for everyone.”
Like so many other schools, Linda knew she would have to make the most of the space she had. The charter just could not afford any additional classrooms, and even if it could, they didn’t have the time to wait. The campus was expecting 1,500 students in the fall and her special education students would not have a private place where the resource specialists could conduct speech therapy.
Linda found Screenflex Portable Room Dividers, an Illinois-based manufacturer of versatile, flexible dividers, after a quick search on the internet. The company offers online space planning. You can also get free information kits to help make the decision-making process easier for facilities managers and other district personnel.
“Everything I needed was right there on their website,” said Linda. “I placed the order. In less than three months, I had the space I needed at a cost our school could afford.”
Santa Monica Elementary School’s large 26 feet by 24 feet multipurpose room was transformed into one 9 by 13, one 15 by 13, and one 17 by 9 room, as well as a 7 by 9 storage area. All, for approximately $10,000. The walls are 6 feet tall and include three doors. This helps create more private study and work areas. It has mallard green designer fabric that blends in nicely with in the school’s decor and surroundings.
Screenflex designed the Room Dividers so that speech therapy could be conducted in one area, teachers could prepare lesson plans in another, and items could be stored in the remaining section. All of the dividers are on casters so they can be easily wheeled away and stored in just minutes. They fold neatly and compactly, accordion style, so that the large multipurpose room can still be used for assemblies, programs, or special events as often as necessary.
“As your needs change, you can open a room back up and would never know the dividers were there,” said Steve Bonesz Marketing Manager at Screenflex Portable Partitions. “That’s the beauty of our portable room dividers.”
Bonesz said this versatility makes dividers an excellent alternative not only to conventional construction, but to modular classrooms as well.
“A school may have tremendous growth one year, but a decline the next,” said Bonesz. “Portable Room Dividers allow your school to change its use of space as its needs at a much lower cost than using modular classrooms.”
In addition to portability, Screenflex Room Dividers offers a look schools can be proud of. The dividers come in 31 different colors, including fabric and vinyl finishes that are tackable and conveniently used to display students artwork or papers. Room Dividers are also available in six different heights: 4’, 5’, 6’, 6’-8”, 7’-4”, 8’ and lengths from 5’-9” to 24’-1”. Also Screenflex’s patented Freestanding Room Dividers can be locked together to form unlimited lengths, depending on your own school’s needs.
Windows, doors, dry-erase marker boards, and a variety of other features can be added to make your dividers more aesthetically pleasing and functional. All Screenflex dividers are shippable by truck and require no assembly upon arrival. Costs start at $510 and many dividers are available in stock for immediate delivery.
Portable Room Dividers today are being used by high schools, colleges, churches, hospitals and even minor league baseball teams. The dividers can transform a gym into a Sunday school, a cafeteria into a study hall, and a conference room into a private meeting room.
“The options are endless,” said Bonesz. “There are no limits to what you can do with them.”
For more information on Screenflex Room Dividers or for a free planning guide, visit Screenflex Portable Partitions on the web at www.screenflex.com or call (800) 553-0110.