Driving into a new routine. 

Among current construction, some students who park in the College and Career Center (CCC) are being forced to relocate into an off-campus parking area behind the football field. As of now, these students will be moving to this location Feb. 26. 

Assistant Principal Mike Brangers will be monitoring the new parking space in the morning to ensure that students are parking properly and efficiently. “I will be out there in the mornings, because there’s not going to be lines in our parking lot where they’re going to be relocated. So I’m just going to make sure people are safely parking and that we have enough space for everyone,” Brangers said. 

The new parking area will be located behind the football field, which will cause the students who moved there to have to walk a longer distance to the school building each morning. Administration is taking measures to make sure that students stay safe, including turning on the stadium lights in the football field to improve visibility. “Hopefully, our weather will start getting warmer so nobody has to really walk in cold weather,” Brangers said. 

Students will not be the only ones affected by this new parking plan. After spring break, it is likely that the CCC students will be able to go back to their typical parking area, but the teacher parking lot on the side of the CCC will be permanently overtaken by construction, which means that teachers will then have to move their parking area, also. Co-op students will not be majorly affected other than having to move their parking spot; they will still sign out normally at the front of the school like usual, but instead will walk to their new parking spot behind the football field. 

The construction on parking at the school is considered a part of “phase two” of the massive construction project that is subject to unfold over the next few years at East. “Phase one” was reformation of the football stadium that was finished at the beginning of the 2023-24 school year. 

A project of this magnitude is naturally going to be some roadblocks, causing delays in the entire construction process. “They’re having to put an underground drain in; they had to do that before they could do any of the parking stuff. So that’s kind of pushing things back as well with the parking,” Brangers said. The future and condition of the student parking lot remains in the air, with changes possible at any given moment.