Junior year brings many changes in the life of a student, and one of the more exciting ones is the freedom of having a driver’s license. Throughout the year, the number of cars that line the dirt parking lot behind the high school, or “Q lot”, has steadily grown. In September, a few cars dotted the lot. Now in late March, 70 plus cars pack themselves like sardines.
For the first time all year, there will be a lottery done for junior parking passes in the month of April. This will be done with a random number generator that will assign each student eligible a number that will then be used to determine if they will get parking or not. If your number is under 70, you won a parking pass. This is will be new to many students that have been parking all year long with no trouble, but now have not gotten a pass. In fact, if you have gotten a pass in previous months, you are less likely to win one in the lottery since all people who have already had a pass were given less of a chance to have their name chosen.
Many students feel that there are many issues with the current junior parking situation, and they think that options other than a lottery should be explored in order to make junior parking the best, and most fair, that it can be. One junior, Nick Latham, suggested that juniors should be able to park in free spaces that they find in the bus parking lot; “Honestly, there is a lot of free space in the parking lot behind the school by the buses that we should be allowed to take advantage of. In addition to that, many of the buses are not even being used. Maybe the school could find a better spot to put some of them and open up some room for juniors.” Nick feels that to fit all the juniors cars, the school just needs to make a little more space because Q lot is just a little to small, and some extra space go a long way.
Another student, Conor Melbourne, feels that there is no need for a lottery and that there is enough room for everyone to park in Q. He believes that parking should be done on a “first come first serve basis” and that “if you are willing to come in early for a spot, you should get one, and if you want to sleep in, you should have another way to get to school.” While this is an interesting idea, it has some issues. For instance, a student might come to school on time but still find that the lot is full and have nowhere to park. Also, a student should not be penalized if they have a first period free, and they want to stay home for it. Conor went on to describe another issue that juniors face with parking, students leaving too much space between cars and taking up more space than they need. To this, Conor suggests that the school have lines painted in, so students have a guideline on where they should park.
For now, junior parking is really only an issue for the month of April. After April, many seniors will be gone on senior experiences, which will free up many parking spaces around campus. Until then, juniors who were not lucky enough to win a pass will just have to tough it out. While this year was not too bad at all, as most students were able to park almost whenever they wanted to, this might not always be the case and the everyone will just have to roll with the punches and try to find ways to improve the situation.

Do you think that the current parking system is working for Juniors?