It’s 7:30 A.M. on Sep. 4, and the Schreiber parking lot is filled with frantic students and teachers who are bustling around to find suitable parking spots for their cars—parking spots that will not be available for long.  This poses a massive problem for the school: how can they fit all of the teachers’ parking spots while still allowing senior parking? Well, in past years, the solution to this issue had been to redistribute spots that were typically occupied by seniors to teachers, an approach that only tackles one side of the problem. There are many other ways to combat this problem to ensure that both seniors and teachers receive the parking spots they deserve.

At the beginning of this school year, the senior class was given more parking passes than there are spots in the student lot, resulting in chaos every morning.  This causes traffic jams and many students to be late for first period classes.  Generally, after teachers who drive to Schreiber park their cars, there are about 15 spots left in the staff parking lot. These 15 spots could easily be converted into student parking.  While 15 does not sound like a large number, even the smallest increase of parking spots would be extremely beneficial, and would save students a lot of time in the mornings to know that they consistently had a place to park. 

 “This solution would also be extremely easy for school administration to put into place, since it wouldn’t require any new construction or heavy work, just a change in who is allowed to park there.  I think it would be an easy way to solve the problem of there not being enough spots for senior parking, but it wouldn’t help with the congestion problem every morning and afternoon,” said senior Julian Kimball.

Another idea which could combat this issue, though less feasible than the first, is to figure out a way to reduce the amount of traffic on Port Boulevard and Campus Drive every morning.  

“I drive to school every morning and it is always such a stressful experience for me since I’m constantly worried that I won’t get a spot.  It takes forever to get through Port Boulevard, and if the lot is full by the time I get there, I need to find a different area to park which can take another twenty minutes on a bad day.  It also doesn’t help that we are penalized by teachers for being late to first period, which adds to the stress of the morning parking,” said senior Charlie Cohn. 

If Schreiber was able to better direct traffic flow to circulate the cars in a more effective and efficient way—for example, by opening up the back entrance to school at St. John’s Place—seniors could get to the school much quicker and therefore be less pressed for time every morning.  In addition to this, the bus schedule could be pushed later (assuming it works with the timings of the other schools in the district), allowing more students to be available to take the bus since they would not run as early as they currently do (picking students up around 7 a.m.).

While there are many possible solutions and benefits to changing the parking situation at school for seniors, there are obvious cons.  Having a parking spot is a privilege deserved by every teacher at the school, and they take precedence over students, making it hard to allot more spaces to seniors while still prioritizing teachers.  On top of this, expanding the senior parking lot or making changes to the infrastructure surrounding the school is a rather complicated situation. The money that would be spent on this project could be better used and spent on other issues around school, such as bathrooms and sports facility renovation.

If nothing is done about this issue, seniors and other students alike will continue to have stressful mornings while traveling to school, will be forced to frequently be late for first period, and will only grow more frustrated with the school transportation system that has become normalized here.