MANCHESTER — Portable units at five city schools are closed today to allow repair work to be completed on ramps leading to and from the structures. The work is being done after a wooden platform at the Beech Street School collapsed Friday.

“Facilities personnel were out this weekend at schools that have portables and similar structures,” Superintendent of Schools Thomas Brennan said.

“The portables at these schools were identified as locations where minor work could be performed, so the decision was made to close the portables so Facilities crews can shore up the ramps. The plan now is to have them reopen on Tuesday. Until then, we'll find space within our school buildings to accommodate the students who would normally be in these portables. We don't want to take any chances with them.”

Brennan said the portables are at the Beech Street School, Northwest Elementary, and the Wilson, McDonough and Weston schools.

Portable units and ramps at the Jewett, Gossler Park, Green Acres and Hallsville schools, as well as the Manchester School of Technology (the adult education program) will open as usual today, after Brennan said inspections deemed the structures safe for students and staff to use.

On Friday, as many as 12 students suffered minor injuries when a corner of landing connecting two annex buildings gave way at the Beech Street School. The wooden platform is at the end of a ramp leading to the entrances for two of three annex buildings located south of the main Beech Street School building.

Brennan said Sunday night that investigators and crews from the city's Facilities Division were at the site late Friday and over the weekend; he expects to learn the cause of the collapse later today.

“I'm expecting to receive a report sometime (today), in time to review it with the School Committee,” said Brennan. “We will also have a meeting today with the teams that responded to the scene on Friday, everyone involved, to assess our response as a city and a district. We'll discuss what we did well, and what maybe could have been done better.”

Tonight's meeting of the Board of School Committee gets under way at 7 p.m. in City Hall.

Brennan said over the weekend that he estimates the ramps that collapsed were somewhere between 10 and 12 years old.

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Paul Feely may be reached at pfeely@unionleader.com.