When students and parents came to school this year, there was one very noticeable change at the high school and elementary school: the new pavement. Over the summer, the administration took on the project of resurfacing the high school parking lot, elementary parking lot and elementary black top.
This project started in March of 2023 with previous superintendent Mitch Hoffer but didn’t go into effect until the summer of 2024 with superintendent Rex Pfeil.
“So what they (Omaha Paving) do is they come and they take pictures of everything, and so they document all the areas that need to be repaired and cracks and things like that,” Pfeil said. “There were a lot of areas in the high school parking lot that they identified with pictures and things like that. And so we walked the parking lots and we basically identified the areas that we wanted done.”
This project wasn’t easy and took about 10 working days for the elementary and 7 for the high school.
“So basically they grounded off to about two inches, and then they resurfaced. And then other areas where there were deep cracks and other things, they grounded off, and then they refilled,” Pfeil said.
There were also challenges along the way that the working crew ran into with the elementary parking lot. As Omaha Paving was digging, they found high levels of moisture in the dirt that caused all the dirt to sink, so they had to dig even deeper and then fill it back up.
“Sometimes, when you do projects like that, you think you know what the issue is, and then we start opening up or grinding away,” Pfeil said. “It’s like, oh, it’s worse than what we thought. So there’s a little bit of that extra expense at the elementary school.”
Not only was the work done to fix existing issues, but there were also improvements made to help the surface stay nice amid the Nebraska weather.
“And then that black stuff is a sealant. So that sealant helps seal the asphalt, so the elements—water, rain, snow, things like that—don’t penetrate as quickly in it, so you get more life out of it,” Pfeil said. “And then they also blew all the cracks and filled the cracks with tar as well.”
After the project was finished, the students noticed very quickly how nice the improved surface was.
“Some feedback that I would give about the new parking lot would probably be that it’s nicer and cleaner and it has a lot less issues than the old one because it’s smoother and there’s less potholes,” junior Maddie Fenn said.
Another thing the students and staff noticed was that some of the parking sports changed. The administration made this change by taking out the middle open section and instead painting parking spots to help with safety concerns.
“I actually like it a lot, like how there’s way more parking spots and more kind of a one-way through instead of that whole gap in the middle where cars were trying to go through because high schoolers are stupid and don’t know how to drive like me and so there probably just gonna crash into each other,” senior Clark Cogdill said.
Pfeil agrees that the new parking lot layout helps with safety for both drivers and pedestrians.
“We have young drivers and plus, we have activities and athletics and things like that. So with that, with eliminating that cross traffic area where we saw a lot of bad driving, we hope that they’ll make the flow a little bit safer…especially for pedestrians and young drivers, we don’t want somebody getting in an accident or getting hit,” Pfeil said.
Overall, the students and staff are happy with the improvements that have been made.
“It’s wonderful to have new pavement,” English teacher Alyssa Hansen said. “We needed this, and we are so excited that we finally have it.”
