As you drive into the main parking lot at Monarch High School these days, you find cars parking in places that aren’t legal parking spots, on the back street by the football field, and you drive around three times until someone else pulls out of their spot, making it available to snatch. Don’t expect to get a parking spot if you’re running late or coming back from your off period.
Why has this just recently become an issue? We are missing one very important factor of our administrative staff, our trusted Security Guard, Jim Wilpolt. “The amount of people in senior lot that do not have a senior lot pass is substantial, along with no tickets being given to them,” said senior Lindsey Findley.
Jim Wilpolt was a crucial part to the parking lot being in check. After every lunch period, tickets were handed out to any students without a permit or who parked in the wrong lot. Without his persistence and consistency, there have been some flaws in the parking system at Monarch.
Senior Austin Beswick believes the problem is that parking passes are getting handed out without knowing the actual capacity of the lot. “I learned [through the administration] that the senior lot was sold over capacity. There’s the problem right there. And the senior lot should never be filled to capacity. Maybe make a 90% fill limit,” said Beswick.
The problem was brought to the Administration’s attention last Tuesday, November 6, by a group of unhappy seniors affected by the issue. Findley was given a parking ticket, even though there was not a parking spot available in Senior Lot. Findley said, “I went out to my car after 4th period and had a $10 parking ticket. I was NOT happy.” And she was not the only senior ticketed for parking either on the street or in spots unavailable for parking, even though the students with Senior lot passes were left no choice. The tickets given out unfairly were voided by the Administration.
“A lot of seniors were very upset at the fact that they didn’t have room to park. Honestly we have waited four years to be able to park in senior lot, and its finally our time and we don’t have a parking spot.” said Findley. “They [the Administration] need to understand parking is a privilege and seniors deserve their spot after being in school for four years. That’s why the junior lot is called the junior lot, it’s designated for juniors,” added Beswick.
Although the Seniors were upset for many reasons, they brought solutions to the table. “The front three or four rows on both sides of the senior lot should be designated for seniors only. Then the last row or two should be for juniors that win the pass lottery in the middle of the year,” said Beswick.
According to Assistant Principal Eric Moroye, the issue is that the Junior lot is full due to sophomores and juniors filling the space, and juniors are being moved up to senior lot to compensate for it. But what happens in the Spring when more sophomores get their licenses? For now, the administration is investigating the problem and seeing what they can do about it promptly before the issue gets worse.
