The early morning rush is already chaotic for students. Rushing to pick out what to wear, eat breakfast and still manage to make it out of the door on time is a universal hassle for all high school students. Now, the class of 2023 is starting to get their licenses and drive themselves to school, along with friends and siblings.
With juniors not having access to the student parking lot, as it is only accessible to seniors, the options of where to park are scarce and risky.
“First, I started parking in the teacher lot. After I got a notice on my car, I had to start parking at Giant, but two days in, my car got towed,” junior Natalie Krenksy said.
Most new drivers choose to park at the less risky, but more crowded Davis Library which lies across the street from the school. There are a few hardships when parking at Davis. Being the only safe place for juniors to park, this means that the streets fill up quickly and early. Another hardship is the walk. On a chilly day, the walk from Davis to the school may seem unbearable for some.
“I park at Davis because I know my car can’t get towed, and to me, that’s worth waking up a couple minutes earlier so I can get a spot before the streets fill up,” junior Chloe Fagan said.
While juniors struggle with these new challenges, this also greatly affects the seniors.
“Not only have the line of cars gotten longer each week, but juniors are also illegally parking in the lot,” senior Taryn Dalton said.
Seeing a free spot closer to the school can be tempting to many juniors, and some give in to that temptation. This leaves seniors with less and less spots to park in, as the student parking lot is already cramped.
“The whole point of the senior lot is getting the privilege to not have to deal with parking. This isn’t the case anymore,” Dalton said.
With all of this in mind, the past few weeks it has been seen that security has begun to crack down on parking. Permits are now asked to be seen when pulling into the student parking lot. The only flaw with this new system is that it holds up traffic. The line of cars has not only become longer but it’s also resulted in more tardies from students getting dropped off at the athletic circle.
Clearly, this dilemma is going to take a lot of trial and error in order to somehow figure out how to make parking for all students smooth and worry free.
New junior drivers are excited to hit the roads and find a new independence behind the wheel. But with new beginnings, come new ends as well. Seniors are soon to graduate and the lot will be occupied by the class of ‘23, and the cycle will continue in the years to come.
