Principal Sheila Smith is excited to announce the new parking lot is scheduled to be open to students on Thursday, February 1. Earlier this school year, seniors were able to apply for parking permits and are expected to be given their passes over the next few days. Students will need these stickers in order to use the lot. “I think they’ll be very happy to have a place to park,” Ms. Smith said.

Parking in the lot will be permitted through a priority system. Teachers will be expected to have passes as well and they will be guaranteed a space. Students with higher grades will have the privilege of getting stickers for parking while other students will continue to take advantage of local street parking. Basing distribution of passes on good grades will give an additional incentive for students to keep their grade point average up.

While some students feel that they should have priority over staff, Ms. Smith said that it will be “better for the students for staff to have a place to park.” Some might consider it a “waste of time” searching for a parking space and in the future Principal Smith hopes to assign numbers to spaces, and possibly match those numbers to staff and students. This, however, will not come into fruition until summer. Having assigned parking spaces will create less havoc, less panic, and less stress among both staff and students. This will also aid with staff who live further away or have to leave campus during the school day. Instead of them having to make the long trip to school, and then search for a parking space, they can park right away and get straight to work without stress. “I want to know that I have a place to park,” Principal Smith said. “I want to be able to park and get right to work.”