Park has started the process of construction on classrooms and certain parts of the school, including the cafeteria and the Media Center. 

This summer, a number of classrooms will be seeing remodels and will be finished by the start of the school year. Since the cafeteria will be a full-year project starting during the 2023-2024 school year, students will have to eat in a different area which will be the gym area during the whole school year and have a completely different school experience.

Sophomore Arun Ferran-Sapatnekar said construction for the cafeteria will cause more inconvenience for both students and teachers.  

“First of all, the hallways will be much more crowded, which will make it very inconvenient not only for people trying to eat their lunch, but also for people trying to get to their classes during fifth hour,” Ferran-Sapatnekar said. “It’ll also make it inconvenient for the teachers because there will be a lot more noise outside of their classrooms, which will be a big distraction and a detriment toward student learning.”

According to English teacher Jodi Schifsky, she is glad that the school is finally remodeling classrooms. 

“Most of the classrooms have been overlooked for the past decade or two, just in terms of their style and upkeep,” Schifsky said. “The new layout is hopefully going to make it more welcoming to students, and able to feel a little more collaborative.” 

Assistant Principal Derrick Wennerberg said there will be “growing pains” during this time of construction, and hopes that students will be able to understand and be patient during this time of construction.

“Anytime you have construction, it always gets uncomfortable and awkward,” Wennerberg said. “Many students at the high school had to go through construction at the middle school. You have to go through some growing pains to make things better. The good thing is that most of the classrooms are going to be finished by the start of the school year.”

Building manager Jim Lodge said that the priority for ongoing construction during the school year is to be as safe as possible when doing construction when it interferes with students and teachers. 

“First and foremost is that this project is going to be safe, not only for students and staff, but for the community as a whole,” Lodge said. “We have to make sure that we maintain the school. School is the primary, that’s why we’re here to make sure that the education process keeps going. It’s like a juggling act trying to make sure that we have enough space available, and yet we’re doing this in a timely manner so that we don’t drag out construction too long.”

Wennerberg said only a certain amount of classes are getting remodeled this summer in spaced out tiers. 

“A majority of the classrooms will be remodeled, but it’s done over a three-year process,”  Wennerberg said. “They’re gonna start with phase one up on the third floor. Phase two will be on the second floor and then phase three will be the bottom floor.”

Sophomore Max Olson said the remodeling of classes will create a better learning environment for Park. 

“The few new classrooms do have a better learning environment,” Olson said. “It will make everything more open, which creates a better learning environment and we’ve needed that in the school for a long time. My grandparents went to Park, and not a lot has been done since they went to this school — hopefully it will look nice and modern.”

Lodge also said that construction will hopefully finish on time for the classrooms, cafeteria and Media Center.

“I do believe that the construction will be done on time,” Lodge said. “The challenge we’re always gonna find out is the unforeseen things. When we open a wall up and there’s something that we don’t know that wasn’t on the plans from the original design build, we just go from there and make the progress that we can. But we will always try and be as accurate as we can when creating a timeframe for how long construction will last.”