Every day, students and staff pour into West’s parking lots searching for a spot to park their vehicles and start their mornings. Yet, as more sophomores turn 16 and are able to drive on their own, many notice that places to park in the springtime become increasingly sparse. Additionally, as many seniors opt to take a free first hour during their last semester, finding anywhere to park in the senior lot can prove difficult as the east entrance is the only way to enter the school after the morning bell rings at 8:05 a.m. This often leads to students finding alternative, and often unauthorized parking spots, such as in the dirt, in the middle of the road, or in no-parking zones. With breaking the rules comes consequences: giant yellow tickets across the passenger window of a student’s vehicle. These yellow stickers are not easy or fun to take off of your vehicle.
According to one of West’s security guards, who wishes to remain anonymous, many students who are forced to park in the dirt actually have parking passes but are unable to find a valid spot to park in. Staff have noticed that “what’s happening is the kids who don’t have permits are beating them to the actual legal spots, so what we really need to be doing is stickering cars without permits, even if they’re in legal spots,” the security guard said.
While most bad parking is noticeable and clearly warrants a sticker, it is the ones who don’t have parking passes that are causing the most trouble.
“Two of us went out a couple of weeks ago and stickered 45 cars that did not have permits and then they told us to back off,” the security guard said.
One solution that many students propose is opening the west entrance during the day, allowing students to enter through the other side so they can park in lots other than the senior and athletic lots, and don’t have to walk all the way around the school if they park in the tennis or CTC lot. However, having the only entrance open filter into the main office is for security purposes, and is unlikely to change anytime soon.
“I think that is a security issue, opening the other door, and then what happens is kids park in the staff lot, and that’s already a big issue,” the security guard said.
