As if waking up in the morning and getting ready for school isn’t hard enough, have you tried to navigate through the Westview parking in the early morning or even worse at the most hectic time of day?
3:05.
In the beginning of each new school year, a new set of eager drivers arrives in our school parking lot. Fresh 16-year-olds and some 14- or 15-year-old students who will be driving to school each day.
But, in order to park in a Westview parking lot as a student you must obtain a parking permit from the school each new school year.
During student orientation in early August, there is a table set up for student drivers to purchase and receive their parking permit which guarantees them a parking space in their respective lot.
This year, students were able to purchase a permit for 20 dollars. When signing up for a permit, students must provide the make, model, year and color of the vehicle, their license plate number and personal phone number. The permit holds a number which connects the student and their car to their permit.
During this process drivers agree to the consequences that may happen if they do not abide by these rules.
Outlined in the Westview Student Handbook 2023-2024, it states that students may face up to 4 offenses. Each offense comes at the cost of a ticket, the first beginning at $5.00 until a high of $15.00. At the fourth offense, the vehicle would be towed at its owner’s expense. On page 8 of the student handbook it reads, “Drivers of illegally parked vehicles, vehicles parked on school grounds without a valid parking permit, or student vehicles improperly parked will be ticketed and towed at the owner’s expense.”
I have purchased a parking permit in both of my years at Westview and have it readily seen hanging on my rearview mirror for the correct school authorities to view it. While I do have concerns about students who do not purchase a permit and continue to park in the lots, I also have concerns about individuals parking in the incorrect lots.
As an individual that has her own pass, students that do not purchase their own pass sometimes outrages me. A common thought in my mind is, why should I have to pay my fees for other students to not have to? Although some may say that this thought process is a little egregious, in a typically four-year span a student driver would end up paying $80.00 in fees to park in a school parking lot.
If I must pay that fee to drive to school, then so should every other student who wants too as well.
Being able to park in a school parking lot is a right that you must pay to be able to have access to, especially with the additional inconvenience of the YMCA.
Without seniors in our building, the junior students have had the opportunity to use amenities that would generally be awarded to senior students as the eldest students in the building. One of these amenities that the junior class has acquired early is the senior parking lot. According to the 2023-2024 handbook, junior students (juniors, sophomores, and freshmen) are to park in the junior lot, and senior students are to park in the senior lot. With our school’s uniqueness, juniors are the only students permitted to park in the senior lot.
“Our junior students are supposed to park in the senior lot and next year they will stay in that lot. All freshmen and sophomores are supposed to park in the junior lot,” Activities Director Scott Peters said.
My concerns with other classes parking in my lot may be because the class of 2025 has been considered the “upperclassmen,” of our school since we began, being the leaders of sports, clubs, academics and overall starting the culture of our school. The little things such as a closer parking lot, seem like a thank you for building the school up.
But how do we address the issue of students incorrectly parking? Mr. Peters explained how next year this issue should be as “hot” as it is now.
“We could be going out more than we are right now, but in January it is just more difficult with the weather, but we will be staying on top of this next year. In March we will probably go out at the start of the quarter. We also have plans to hire more security officers and purchase a gator [vehicle] for the officers to use out in the lot,” Peters said.
To make sure that students park in their correct lot, each grade will be given a different color parking pass to make it easier for security to quickly identify cars in the incorrect lot.
Connected to our school is the “Westview YMCA.” The YMCA does have their own lot for staff and patrons to park their vehicles in, but what might be misleading is the fact that the lot is directly connected to the staff lot.
The YMCA’s 5:00 am opening time is earlier than the high school. Many members of the “Y” park their cars in the staff lot assuming that they will be out of the lot before our staff arrives in the morning. But, they are not out of the staff lot, taking staff spaces which are only allocated for Westview High School staff. Because of this, staff have resorted to parking in different spaces, such as the seniors’ front rows, junior lot spaces and by the softball and baseball fields, which is more of an inconvenience for them.
“It gets a little complicated because of the YMCA. We have asked them to stay in their lot, but they don’t always do it perfectly and creep into the staff lot and it gets a little messy. They creep into the senior lot even more,” Peters said.
The Westview YMCA has over 11,000 patrons and as you would expect they come and go from the Y at all times of the day. To make sure that they park in their parking lot, anyone without a Westview staff permit will be issued a warning to remind them of where they are supposed to park.
Westview is not able to collect on the tickets from people at the YMCA, but they will have the annoyance of removing a sticker on their vehicle to once again show them where they are permitted to park.
“We’re a team together, we are a school first and we just happened to have a Y connected us,” Peters said.
As we go into the 2024-2025 school year, Peters explained how this wasn’t the first time that parking concerns have been brought up. Peters and Westview security officer Mr. King have had discussions about this before regarding next year. Which brings a sigh of relief to me and I’m sure many others too.
Understanding that there will be upwards of 1,600 people coming to Westview every day next year and that the administration has plans to be out in the parking lot every day to limit the number of accidents and begin to administer tickets as well.
Many students may be unhappy when they hear the word “ticket,” but it is important to understand that each offense only adds up by $5.00 each time.
So, my advice, park correctly, and save that $5.00 to go buy a morning coffee instead. We all know that’s what you’d rather be spending it on anyway.
As our school grows with students, it will have to grow with staff too, which means we will have a direct increase in the need for more space to park.
“We aren’t here to tell people how to park but we are here to encourage them where to park in order to keep their car safe,” Peters said.
“Next year we are truly going to get a gator and try to police the lot to keep not only it safe, but you guys also,” Peters said.
This problem of not enough parking spaces is one we will have to get used to, since there is not enough land to expand our parking lots. But this raises the question, “Why wasn’t this thought of when our school was being built.”
Simple answer. It wasn’t considered how rapidly our school would grow.
As a junior, I have parked in the senior lot during my two years here and will continue to solely park in this lot until I have graduated. Other juniors are concerned with parking spaces as well.
“I go to the senior lot because it is where we are supposed to park and it also connects to my neighborhood,” Kya Belt, 11, said.
Not only does Belt follow the rule when it comes to where to park, she is also concerned about the underclassmen, and make-shift parent pick up lanes in the senior lot.
“It’s very frustrating knowing that I am supposed to be able to have the convivence of parking in the senior lot, but the underclassmen are kind of taking that away from me. The parents also make it extremely difficult to get into and out of the lot. They make random pick-up lanes in the parking lot and just sit there until their kid comes out. They have an actual drop-off and pick-up lane that they need to be using instead of using our space,” Belt said.
Belt also explains that her friends feel similar ways.
That many of them have jobs that they have to get to by 4:00 or even 3:00, that these unexpected lines make navigating through a parking lot with unexperienced drivers even more difficult to leave the building.
Some days I find myself stuck behind a fake pick-up lane that underclassmen parents have begun to make. Getting out of the building at 3:06 does no good if I truly don’t make it off school grounds to around 3:45.
I’m not very sure why parents aren’t able to follow school rules and pick their students up from the pick-up lane, when they urge their students to follow the rules within the school. It applies both ways not just for the student.
You could argue that student drivers should arrive earlier to school to make sure that they are able to get a spot to park but from personal experience I arrive to school about 20 minutes early every day and I still see parents parked in the senior lot waiting for their child to walk into school for the day. If your student does not drive their own vehicle to school, there is no reason, they should be taking up a parking space up front waiting with their parents to walk into school at their earliest convenience.
“I wasn’t aware that parents had started to do this in the senior lot, but I plan on seeing what I can do about this,” principal Thomas Lee said.
Sophomores had their own unique opinions on what determines where they park as well.
“I park in the senior lot because it’s closer to the front of the school and my classes at the end of the day are close to that lot,” Morgan Doering, 10, said.
While some students prefer to park closer to their friends. Tierney Carman, 10, said she parks in the senior lot to walk in and out of the building with her friends.
Another sophomore Claire Miller explains why she parks in the senior lot along with many other sophomores and the few freshmen who drive.
“I park in the senior lot because everyone else does, it also seems closer to the building than the junior lot, so it isn’t as far to walk, a lot of the girls on the cheer team also park there so we all walk to the senior lot when practice is over,” Miller said.
The parking lot at Westview may be a concern to many students in the upcoming months and years. They can be reassured that changes are coming, and our parking lot could seem more like an oasis and less like a nightmare.
