BY PAULINE ALCARAZ
Coming back into this 2016 school year, many students were surprised to notice that the blacktop by the gym had been demolished. All of the construction was taking place during registration and made it difficult for students to get across campus. The mess from the construction also made our campus look unappealing to incoming freshmen and their parents, not to mention seniors who were trying to take their senior pictures..
This type of construction should have been done weeks before the school year was starting or about to start. Having construction workers work on a big project like this could have been hazardous to students who were spending their summer days practicing on campus or helping out with leadership classes. Personally, this type of development interfered with my leadership class training and orientation days. An example would be when freshmen orientation occurs which requires Link Crew leaders to take groups on a tour around the school and better understand their high school. Although with all the construction, limitations were placed which did not allow for us to take our groups to the W-building.
Also, due to the fact that the cement is so new, the heat of the sun makes the cement incredibly hot. Even with my shoes on, I can feel how hot the cement gets and I wouldn’t feel this as bad with the old blacktop. Another problem is how the new cement is a dark Charcoal color while the old cement located by the girls and boys locker room is still a faded grey. This does not make sense to me; the cement should have been all done new instead of leaving patches of old cement.
On the other hand, there are some beneficial sides to this new project. “It feels great to walk to my classes on a new and nice cement”, said senior Kimmie Avila. If construction workers were to work on this during the school year there would have been an even bigger complication. “I remember when they were working on it during summer it smelled really bad and nobody would want to smell that during lunch,” said Avila. If they were to have done it during the school year, I feel as though many students and teachers would be complaining about the smell and the fact that they decided to do it during the summer” said Avila. Ultimately the timing was bad, but no that bad.In the end, we have a nicer campus that makes it more appealing to visitors and students.
Ultimately, I think that the cement should have been done a little sooner to prevent it from causing complications before the school year began. If there were less complications that came along with the new cement, then maybe it wouldn’t have become an issue to some students.
