The new school year doesn’t just mean new school supplies, new clothes, and new friends. Students literally crossed a new threshold to start the  school year on Wednesday.

“I love the new entrance because it’s really obvious that it is the main entrance,” Landon Finn, junior, said. “Something I didn’t like about the old one was that it was kind of tucked away into the corner of the school and people unfamiliar with the school wouldn’t really be able to find it. This one looks really nice and stands out from the rest of the building. Everyone will know what it is.”

According to Finn, accessibility is just one problem the new entrance has addressed. Prior issues also included a lack of security.

“We had the guards sitting at the old entrance, but it was still really easy to just walk in when they were busy and get into the school,” Finn said. “The new entrance has an area where now guests have to be buzzed in to enter the school, which I think is going to make a lot of students feel safe.”

Along with improved security, the new entrance also includes a renovated parking lot, designed to help with problems pertaining to traffic flow. Addressing problems with drop-off, u-turns, and lane changes, the parking lot has been restructured to include a new lane specifically just for drop-off.

“The drop off lane makes things a lot easier,” Mandy Perez, junior, said. “In the morning, I would sometimes be late to class because of the traffic in the parking lot. The drop off lane makes it so that everyone in the lot isn’t just running into each other and getting stuck. It makes the morning a lot more efficient.”

Catering to the students and improving the quality of their school day is the central purpose of the renovations according to Ryan Rubenstein, assistant principal of facilities and activities.

“As a district, students needs are always changing with time,” Rubenstein said. “What I needed when I went to school years ago is completely different than what students need now. That’s why  facility improvements is a goal. Renovations help adapt to these changing needs.”

Rubenstein’s and the district’s desire to cater to student needs is already proving to be successful, according to Finn and Perez. Both agree the new entrance is just one of many renovations that has made school a better experience for them, along with prior renovations such as Studio C and new bleachers.

“I remember when Studio C was finished, everyone was regularly using it just a week after it was done,” Finn said. “Renovations like that are supposed to help students and bring our school up to date and I think a new entrance does just that.”