The long way to school.

The well known shortcut next to Dance Unlimited has been blocked by a barbed wire fence.

The student parking lot is very full and local businesses will allow some students to park in their parking lot, with their permission of course. Students will typically walk to school by cutting through the back of Dance Unlimited and around the football field on the track, rather than walking along the road. Monday morning, however, there was a fence put up in attempt to keep students from walking that way.

Parking spots are limited every year. Some students who aren’t able to get a parking pass will ask local businesses to park in their parking lots. For example, Halftimes and Kroger have let students who ask for permission to park there in the past.

Students who park at those businesses are known to walk along the road behind Kroger and cut through onto school property through an opening in the trees by the business Dance Unlimited. There, students can safely walk along the football field on the outside of the track.

Monday morning though students were surprised to find the opening blocked with a barbed wire fence. It didn’t take someone long to bend the fence down and step over it though. Administrator Tim Ridley said, “It’s a safety issue for one to have a bunch of people cut through there. I know kids cut through there in the mornings but that leaves a part of our campus open, so that’s why we try to have it blocked off.”

Freshman Riley Gentry said, “I think the fence is a good idea for football games but not for kids who cut through there in the morning for school.”

A big issue with having to walk around to the front of the school is that there is no sidewalk that goes all the way down that road. Ridley said, “I’ll mention to Troy Barr that there is no sidewalk along that road, because he is apart of the city council. I was not sure if there was a sidewalk over there or not, but again leaving that open all the time is just a safety concern. Anybody at anytime could cut through that opening if it was there.

Although the attempts to keep students from walking through the opening have been made, some have just pushed the fence down and walked over it. Ridley said, “It’s going to go back up and so if we catch them pushing it down, destroying it, it will be destruction of property. So they would get in trouble for that. If we catch people trying to walk through it, then we will just direct them the other way to go around.”