Teachers in the parking lot

Students rejoice. Aragon’s student parking lot is once again, as it should rightfully be, “Aragon’s student parking lot.” Listen closely, and you can hear as the students’ cheers fill hallways as students can once again freely park on campus without having to scream out in agony in the middle of the parking lot when all the spaces are taken. For far too long, students have been deprived of their parking privileges. It’s enough to have Baywood parents occupy spaces in our parking lot, but the situation worsens when teachers take up spaces. All things considered, students are left with a significantly reduced number of spots in the rather small parking lot to begin with. There are approximately 176 spots available to students, but the number of permits sold to students each year far exceed the number of spots available. Consequently, students find that parking in the morning resembles more of a fight and scurry to see who can discover a rare vacancy. In fact, students arriving on campus even ten minutes before the bell are lucky to find a single spot. Students end up driving laps around the lot expecting to find spots, but are more often than not left screaming inside their car in frustration. It doesn’t help that the number of spots available to students is further reduced by teachers parking in students’ spots. Everyday, a line of teachers’ cars can be seen in the frontmost spots closest to the building. Four or five teachers in a row. In addition to the number of teachers here and there scattered around the parking lot. On one hand, it is understandable that teachers should be allowed to park wherever they desire, considering the amount of work they do each day and the number of hours they dedicate towards our education. It’s understandable that asking the science wing teachers to park near their designated spots in front of the office and then to walk across campus is a slightly unreasonable request. Still, the discrepancy that exists between students and teachers in regards to parking on campus remains too prevalent of an issue to ignore. Students pulling into the parking lot at 7:50 a.m. expect to be able to find parking, but are far too often rendered infuriated when they can’t find a single spot and must then turn back out onto Alameda and find a spot along the street off-campus — if they can even manage to do so in the middle of a busy street swarming with parents rushing to get to work and students scrambling to make it to class before the second bell. Currently, tardies due to car conflicts are considered unexcused and so pleading with one’s first period teacher does him/her no good. That being said, is being late to a class due to insufficient parking really a student’s fault? Especially since the parking lot is already small enough and teachers taking spaces only contribute to the students’ issues. How can teachers ask students to arrive on time if they are adding to an already concerning problem? Granted, an argument can be made for students to arrive earlier in order to find parking easier; however, it is still ridiculous that students arriving 15 minutes before the bell can find only a line of teachers’ cars all parked in the first row where there should be student cars or vacancies. As a result, students illegally parking by the senior parking spot, on the red fire lane by the softball field, and in the handicap spaces can frequently be seen. I can plead guilty of doing so myself. Teachers generally arrive prior to 7:45 a.m. and thus, it shouldn’t be an issue for them to walk across campus from the staff parking lot. Students who dare to even park in the staff lot are issued detentions despite the fact just driving up the main entrance to the office, I easily spotted about 20 vacant parking spots in the “staff parking lot.” To put that in perspective, 20 vacant spots in the student parking lot is almost unheard of. All in all, there is already a deficit in the number of spots available to students. It has been made clear by administrators when students first purchase their parking permit that the staff parking lot is “off-limits.” But then again, teachers are allowed to occupy the students’ already insufficient number of spots, causing them to resort to illegal traffic practices and be late to class. I admit that teachers are not the only source of the student parking lot conflict, however, in an effort to relieve the students’ agony in the morning pertaining to parking and to help lower the number of tardies due to car conflicts, it would do both teachers and students great benefit for the number of spaces in the student parking lot to be made as available to students as possible. After all, making students late for class and essentially encouraging illegal traffic behavior can be resolved by teachers parking in their respective spots.