NOCTILUCA November 2017

NEWS Appleton, Wisconsin November 2017 Volume XXIII Issue II Page 2 Clark , Upsides versus downsides of new parking lot

Teaming Up, from page 1

and exit paths gets very disorganized. Additionally, the three way stop and drop off area experiences congestion. This is also due to students crossing the crosswalks when they shouldn’t, and cars not pausing in areas they should.” Mr. Joel Hermansen, Staff Member at Appleton North High School: “The upside to the latest parking lot would be how much more organized and well structured the layout is. Individuals havemorecoherent paths and roads they should be taking to minimize confusion. In contrast, a major downside to this new construction is that is was not created effectively enough to solve the chaos and stressful aspects of exiting the compound; there should have been more exit paths established to minimize disorder.” Kaitlyn Pope, Sophomore at Appleton North High School: “I received my license a couple months ago, and have already experienced the positive and negative aspects of the new parking lot. One of the biggest downfalls of the parking lot is at the end of school when everyone is trying to leave the parking lot at once. Since there is no clear system to exit, it takes such a long time to leave, and people cut each other off. It is very frustrating. One positive element to the new layout is that there are parking lot connectors, so I can easily enter a different parking lot without too much hassle if the other is filled up.”

career that needed more than just the ability to design a building; he needed the ability to talk to clients about their vision for the project he was working on for them. “I think I can offer some perspective on how architecture – like many professions – has evolved as people and the world change. The economy, the environment, and changing society needs all have an influence on design and

Early morning traffic coming in to the recently reconstructed Appleton North parking lot. Photo by Olivia Molter.

By Adithi Reddy The Appleton North High School parking lot and student drop off area received construction changes over the summer of 2017. The new parking lot was devised in efforts to alleviate the stress and chaos of entering, parking in and exiting the complex. The implementation of construction plans began on April 24, andwas completed on July 25, the Friday before the 2017-2018 school year began. Below are the responses of five staff members and students fromAppleton North when the Noctiluca posed this question: What do you perceive are the upsides and downsides of the new parking lot layout? Mr. David Pynenberg, Principal of Appleton North High School: “During the 2017 summer months, the Appleton Area School District’s engineer, Mark Hansel, and I conducted multiple traffic studies, and investigations and observations downtown, in order to effectively construct a parking lot with a safer organization to benefit drivers and pedestrians, and reduce hazards. At the beginning of 2017-2018 school year, every student received a map of the new parking lot, as well as an informative packet designed to educate driver on the layout of the new complex. Despite this, many individuals incorrectly used the parking lot, entrances and exits during the initial weeks of the school year; as a result of this, authoritative staff members were regularly stationed before and after school at certain parts of the complex in order to observe the traffic flow, direct vehicles North community gives opinion on traffic change

and address any problems. Furthermore, volunteered vehicles were parked in locations where drivers were going against the flow of traffic, in order to correct those dangerous mistakes. As the year progressed on, individuals began to successfully navigate through the new layout with minimal errors. This was significant, as the major goal of the new parking lot was to create a safer environment for pedestrians and drivers. This was also accomplished by creating limited entryways into the parking areas, for example the Ashbury Road entrance immediately leads into a parking lot, in order to minimize chaos and disorganization. A major complication with the new parking lot are the sizes of the road signs (such as stop signs, crosswalks, and yield signs). The signs need to be further enlarged for people to better see, which is something our engineer, Mr. Hansel, is working to fix. Furthermore, students need to use the correct crosswalks to minimize any dangerous situations, and parents need to correctly navigate through the three way stop sign and drop off area to avoid blockages. Lastly, there

will be a few new additions to the parking lot by next year, one of them is raising the pavements of the crosswalks in efforts to direct students to the correct cross paths, and assist as a natural speed bump for oncoming traffic.” Junior at Appleton North High School: “There are definitely some mean people when it comes to entering and leaving school, which is really aggravating. However, I don’t see any huge downsides to the new layout. It works fine for me because I get to the parking lot at 7:25 in the morning, and still make it to class on time.” Mr. Rodney, Staff Member at Appleton North High School: “Being the morning supervisor of the complex, I have observed many upsides and downsides to the new parking lot. Students and staff members coming in from the JJ road entrance can get into the parking lot much quicker, and do not experience backup. On the other hand, the Ballard Road entrance Geena Coffey,

the building environment,” said Andres. The community member Haskell brought in is Mr. Daniel Salazar. Salazar is a project manager at Bemis. He has over 20 years of experience in his career as he has worked in several different managerial positions in theUnitedStatesand in Mexico. In those positions, he lead multiple multifunctional and multicultural teams from different countries in North America, South America, Europe and Asia, and he has deployed global and regional system solutions for different areas within the companies he has worked for. “I would like to share a little bit of the challenges and success stories I had through my life and my career, and to provide to the students some practical recommendations about what they can do now to be better prepared for the future,” Salazar said about why he got involved with the Teaming Up with a Teacher event. This event of teaming up a community member with a teacher will help make connections to real world situations in classes that normally do not focus on the careers the class could lead to. Hopefully, this event will help you formulate an answer to the question, What do you want to Mr. Daniel Salazar, who works as a project manager at Bemis Company, is coming in to talk to ELL classes about his work experience as an immigrant. Photo used with permission by David Salazar

The enlargement of the road signs in the current parking lot is in progress so people can easily see the signs. Photo by Olivia Molter.