As summer came to an end and school started in full swing, many upperclassmen began the annual ritual of purchasing themselves a pass to park in the parking lot.
However, many students were surprised to learn that after they purchased their passes, the administration had made the call that not everyone was given the ability to park in the back lot. This year, the back parking lot has been assigned to juniors and the lower parking lot, near the stadium, has been assigned to seniors.
“Last year was the first year with the new parking lot, and the problem that we ran into in the top lot was with the Kiss and Ride, the teachers, the staff, the juniors and the seniors parking up there. It was a bit of a nightmare with the flow of traffic,” principal Jeff Litz said. “We were getting some complaints from parents and teachers, so this year we decided to try and put the seniors in the bottom lot, which had previously been mostly unused.”
However, students are generally more adversely affected by these changes as many teachers arrive early at school and stay late in the afternoon. While some students like the idea of establishing junior and senior lots, other students are more enticed by the flexibility that comes with being able to choose which lot to park in.
“I think you should be able to choose which lot you park in,” junior Satori Greene said. “Depending on how quickly you leave after school, the traffic in the upper lot can be really bad.”
The traffic situation in the lower parking lot does not fare any better in the eyes of many seniors.
“The buses cause too much congestion which makes it take forever to leave the parking lot in the afternoon,” senior Victoria Novak said.
The school administration has said that while they will not be regularly checking the parking lots, the security staff will be going around every once in a while and looking to see if students are parking in the correct lot.
Security staff will be able to tell students apart from teachers because of their blue passes, as opposed to orange for teachers, as well as be able to correspond the number on the pass with a student.
From there, security will be able to tell their grade level. Students have also been instructed to leave the first three rows in the back parking lot as additional parking for teachers.
While there is hope that the traffic situations in both lots will be resolved, not everyone is optimistic.
“It takes me 15 minutes to get out of the parking lot,” Novak said. “I don’t know how the situation can get better.”