The FHS parking lots are used by both students and staff that attend FHS. However, because there are so many individuals using them, it can become an area of concern.
When there are so many people and cars in a tiny space, it becomes more difficult for high school students, who are just learning to drive, to concentrate on parking appropriately without causing any accidents.
The overwhelming number of other people and vehicles may cause inexperienced high school drivers to become distracted and second-guess how they should drive and park. Other people may experience issues if these novice drivers’ overthinking becomes excessive. The simple truth is that there are few spots available, and the fact that the student parking spaces are small does not lessen this overwhelming discomfort.
Teachers and students have separate areas in which they are allowed to park. Teachers are allowed to park wherever they want, while students are only allowed to park in student-designated, marked spots.
To park in the school’s parking lot, all FHS students and staff must have a school parking pass. The school issues citations to students who are caught in the school’s parking lot without a pass as well as those who have discovered parking in staff spots. If students are caught using staff parking, they are issued a $15 ticket. Since the FHS parking lots cannot accommodate all of the students, they frequently park in the teacher-marked spots. Because there is not enough room to increase the size of the lots, there is constantly a battle between teachers and students for parking spaces.
“In order to increase the parking lots’ size without any further construction, I think the school should convert a portion of the staff parking spots to student parking spaces since I constantly see them [staff parking] empty,” senior Emily Morales-Loe said.
The parking lot would be made larger for the students if some of the staff parking spaces were eliminated and converted to student parking, which would make it simpler for students to find a suitable spot and reduce the likelihood of any accidents. Converting staff parking to student parking will make the parking lot a safer place overall and reduce the number of students receiving parking tickets for using staff-only spaces. However, some teachers would become frustrated by the reduction in the staff parking because they would have to locate a new parking spot and may have a longer walk to the doors they typically use to enter, which are close to their classrooms.
