Got Parking?

Parking has always been a highly discussed topic among students. Most students with a driver’s license have complaints about parking whether they may be how time consuming finding parking is, spot accessibility or even minor accidents. 

“It’s really stressful in the morning so I feel like people are prone to getting into some kind of accident,” junior Anna Peti-Peterdi said. “You have to come extra early [on Wednesdays] because for some reason, the spots fill up so early.”

These issues are nothing new and have been an inconvenience for students and staff alike. 

“We’ve had a lot of students concerned that there’s no parking since the school reopened,” Associate Principal D.J. Hill said. “There, mathematically, are not even close to enough spots.”

Students have their own ideas on how to minimize the problem.

“I feel like people should stay in the [unofficial] designated parking lots because if there are seniors parking in the junior lots and there are spots left in the senior parking lot and juniors can’t park there it’s kind of inconvenient,” Peti-Peterdi said. 

The school administration is aware of the parking issue and is working to resolve it. 

“The biggest goal for parking this year was to create more spots for students,” Hill said. “What we tried to do with the new parking plan was to move all staff out of any student parking at all and essentially move all staff parking behind the main office or into the first couple of rows in the main lot. The idea behind that was that it leaves all of the spots available in the main lot and the student lots for student parking.”

Staff’s cars can be identified by the number correlating to their parking spot.It may be difficult for school administrators to track down whose car belongs to who in case a student needs to move their car. This is where the importance of parking permits comes in. 

“The purpose of the parking pass is for safety,” Hill said. “We have an open campus and so we’re always concerned about people visiting campus and we have to make sure that they’re actually visitors who have been invited on to our campus. Our primary concern is making sure that we don’t have anyone on campus that is not supposed to be.”

Parking permits are vital to keeping school a safe environment. The passes assign a student a number and when a student buys one, their car’s information is kept on record alongside their personal information. 

“You can purchase a parking permit at the student store,” Hill said. “I think they’re twenty bucks and they’re good for the whole year. It’s pretty simple, actually.”

Hill is optimistic that the parking issue will lessen and possibly already has. 

“There’s always going to be complaints about parking because we don’t have enough parking,” Hill said. “I think there have been less complaints.”