By Starly Richards,
Media Editor.
The student parking lot has undergone many changes since last school year, but not so much in appearance as in flow and order. Last year it was made explicitly known that the student parking lot was only for student parking. Parents were told to drop their students off either in the horseshoe at the front of the school, around the back loop or somewhere off campus. However, this year, parents of both junior and senior high school students are being told to perform drop-off and pick-up in the student parking lot, leading to wait times of at least, if not more than, five minutes just to get on Ridgway and into the lot.
Junior Fin Simmons states that the parking lot “is like a warzone.” The parking lot was already a hazard before the addition of 500 more students rushing to get to class on time. Not only is the parking lot filled with students with freshly issued licences, but now also parents desperate to drop their kids off before getting on with their own day.
The middle school officially starts at 8:15 am, leaving high schoolers and middle school parents racing to get into the parking lot before their kids’ respective first bell rings. “If I leave my house at 7:45 every morning I get to school around 8 and the parking lot is absolutely swarming,” said Simmons.
Not only is it filled with a massive surplus of drivers, but they’ve proven to severely lack parking lot etiquette. There is a lack of respect for the fact that it is supposed to be a student space and as Simmons remarked, they’re “not polite drivers.”
The parking lot was already congested when it was just high schoolers. It’s already prone to accidents or almost-hit-and-runs. “Several times I have been trying to pull into the parking lot when people just swerve into me,” said Simmons. Senior Diana LaCalle elaborated on that point, explaining that “it’s lowkey dangerous getting out of the parking lot. It’s hard to see around the cars, people are rushing, it’s terrifying.” Adding more drivers makes it 100 times more risky for both drivers and pedestrians just trying to get to school.
Not only is it incredibly dangerous and hectic, but the entire policy contradicts everything that has been said about the parking lot prior to this year. Last year, the school was very insistent that all pick-up and drop-off should happen outside of the student parking lot to ensure it would remain functional for student drivers.
It’s understandable that the school wants to minimize traffic and road blockage on Mendocino, especially with the addition of 500 students. However, there needs to be a better solution. Flooding the student parking lot with parents, who are all seemingly inconsiderate of the students, negatively impacts people who have other places to be, students who just want to get to class on time and civilians who have nothing to do with the school but end up caught in the traffic crossfires anyway.
