GRAB SOME hot cocoa because winter is almost here! Because the winter season is soon approaching, students and staff at Granger High have been preparing for the harsh winter weather. From simply changing nothing but surviving to stockpiling salt for icy sidewalks. Granger has been preparing for the winter conditions and communicating with the district to find out what steps to do next.

Mr. Adams, one of the vice principals, says that winter is hard to manage for Granger’s large campus.

As such, there are a few precautions that the district and admins talk about, such as potential weather issues, driving conditions and more. Adams says with the focus on weather, the admins communicate with the district early in the morning.

From there they decide how things should go, such as deciding if there is going to be online-snow day or a late start. But one other factor that is hard to manage is the expenses. With such a large amount of ground to cover, the school would need to buy a lot more supplies and have extra manpower. This means that there would be a large expense for salt to get rid of the ice, paying custodians for shoveling, and maintenance for snowplows during the winter.

“It’s really expensive maintaining this school and when a part of the snowplows break, it costs around $6000 to repair it,” said Mr. Adams.

Another thing that helps with those expenses is the heated pavement in the front section of the school. That area makes a more naturally warm area using pipes that move heat around. This means that it doesn’t allow snow or ice to build up there, and it dries out more quickly.

This also benefits the custodians, so that they don’t have to stay out there shoveling. But once other students heard about this heated pavement, they liked the idea so much that they wanted it for their homes, too.

Landon Forrow (9) says that this would be “an upgrade to shoveling.” He says that he gets stuck shoveling the snow all winter, and this would give him a break. Along with this idea, it would help him to focus on other aspects. “Usually during the winter, we have to winterize his cooler, covering the cooler with a tarp so that the house doesn’t get cold,” said Forrow. This planning would help keep his home warm this winter and make life more comfortable, during these colder months.

Dan Alverado (12) is also following in the same path, wanting a warmer winter with the pavement. But he also says it would help his family. “So having the heated pavement would help out my grandpa, since he shovels the most, but make him be out there less,” Alverado said. He then mentions that when shoveling his family tends to get ill, but a heated pavement would help prevent illness with the cold. This also allows more time to prepare for winter with buying more medication, clothes shopping and getting his dog a hoodie.

McKayla Losi Ceno (11) thought it would help a lot more as well. Although most of the shoveling is handled by her apartment, the heated pavement would help them out. Stating that it will help the people who shovel around her apartment with having less work on shoveling and she wouldn’t need to shovel either in case of missed spots. So, it would require less work on both parts.