My sincerest apologies to the upcoming seniors, as I have some upsetting news for your class. If you were planning to do work release during your senior year, unfortunately, this option is being revoked. 

As construction continues on the high school, problems have become increasingly apparent. The construction company has run into a major staffing problem and does not believe it will resolve itself. 

“They said the lack of workers could push progress back months, and we knew we had to put our heads together to figure something out,” said principal Todd Trofimuk. 

Once it was brought to the attention of the school administration, they decided they would take charge to provide help for the construction company. 

 The school and construction company will be working together, and any students doing work release will be working for the construction company on the school.

“We are trying to encourage the students to contribute to the betterment of the school,” said Mr. Trofimuk.

“The district believes this decision will be beneficial to our students’ commitment to education,” said assistant principal Kurt Reiser. 

Now that the students cannot leave early for work, their options will be to stay in school for the entire school day, leave early for college classes, or if students truly want to work, they can work towards the improvement of their own school. This steers students toward more schooling options rather than manual labor. 

If you thought you were getting away with your scheme to leave school early every day and only work from five to seven every other Tuesday, just know that Mr. Trofimuk is aware of what you are up to.

“Implementing this will help us crack down on students that take advantage of our work release program,” said Mr. Trofimuk. 

While administrators see this choice as one that can only be beneficial to students, many students feel the opposite way about the situation. 

“I don’t understand why they are doing this,” said junior Wyatt Foster. “They are limiting our options to work, and the options for classes that we can take here is a small list.”

Foster is right; compared to other schools in the Pittsburgh area we offer very few courses for students to explore options. Further, if a student does not plan to attend college and wants to get into the workforce, the school is limiting the options to just one.  

Even though the school anticipates more students staying in school instead of working for the construction company, a large number of students may still apply to work at the school. We have to ask ourselves: How many jobs can the construction on the school really supply? 

“We expect that there will be some adjustment in the school since so many students currently participate in work release,” said Mr. Reiser, “but we will take it as we go.”

The school will be making exceptions for certain circumstances; students will be able to apply for an appeal for their situation but who knows how generous they will be with exceptions. 

In addition to the students working on the school, Mr. Paul Hoffman–the school’s woodshop teacher–will be assisting with the construction. With the school looking to cut down on as many costs as possible, they have employed Mr. Hoffman to alleviate some of the workload by helping make some of the hardware for construction and supervising the students participating in work release through the construction company. 

The woodshop classes will be cut in half next year seeing as the construction company will have full use of the woodshop in the afternoons. This will force the classes to be in the morning and will lead to there being more students per class than ever before. 

“The classes will be packed and it will definitely be more work,” said Mr. Hoffman. “But, I will have the second half of the day to help the students and supervise.” 

The construction plans for the upcoming school year are unknown to much of the school’s population, but if you’re looking to find out about more of the construction game plan check out Kristen Gallagher’s article about the new student parking lot.