Parking lot for parking only, not student dropoffs

Waking up on a Thursday morning recently, senior Krishnan Raman opened his eyes to see a red 7:32 glaring at him. Realizing that he had slept an hour too long, he showered in a rush and raced to school. Arriving at school at 7:47, Raman estimated that if he could park quickly and run to class he would make it on time for the 7:50 first period bell. However, a parent pulled into the only open junior lot spot to drop off their child, which forced Raman to spend a few more minutes looking for a spot and made him late for class.

Parents parking in the student lots for drop off is a frustrating issue for upperclassmen crunched for time each morning. Students like Raman are angered every time they are pushed one step closer to a Saturday School by a parent’s selfish motives, caused by an unwillingness to follow rules. With school starting at 7:50 a.m. for most students, there is not much time to spare for students who cannot find a parking spot.

The name parking lot makes it clear that there is only one purpose for which the area should be used—parking. There is an entirely separate area for drop off and pick up that spans across the whole front side of the school, providing parents with enough space to drop off their children in the drop off lane.

Students buy parking permits so they will be allowed to park in each of the lots located on the front side of the campus. It is very unfair for parents to take spots from students in the parking lots designed for them.

In previous years, there had been a group of eight students acting as traffic patrol to guide parents where to drop off and guide students where to park. However, this proved to be inefficient as many parents ignored the traffic patrol, and all eight students on duty would be late to class.

A possible solution would just be for students to bike and walk to school rather than drive to school. Many students who are driven to school live within a walking or biking distance of the school and taking advantage of these options would relieve much of the congestion in the parking lot and dropoff areas before and after school every day.

Even though the school would love to solve this traffic issue, much of the problem is in the parents’ hands. The school cannot control how long it takes parents to drop off their children or where the parents decide to drop off their children. The longer that the parents take to drop off their children, the more congested the traffic in the parking lot and Herriman Avenue gets. If the dropoff process was more efficient, parents would not need to park in the student lots to drop off their children and many of the issues would be solved.

Students should have the rights to the spots in their parking lots and allowing parents to drop off children in those lots takes away those rights. There is a dropoff lane for a reason, and there is no excuse for parents to continue to drop their kids off in the student parking lots.