This summer students were met with an unexpected email about a change to parking this school year. Immediately this new update had people talking. This new structure has seniors and a.m. program students enrolled in morning programs, such as dual enrollment and CAPS, juniors park in the back parking lot, and sophomores park in the athletic lot.
“This year LHS will be having a detailed focus on attendance. This system supports this effort,” Dr. Kiesel said when asked about why they implemented the new structure. “This system also gives students some ownership and responsibility into which space they have in the lot. If they want a particular spot, they simply need to arrive early enough to get it.”
Many students feel that having their own parking spot to take care of is more responsible and gives them more experience of ownership. Students wonder if it would be more effective for a student to learn ownership if they actually owned a spot? And wouldn’t students better learn responsibility when they have to take care of their own spot?
Dr. Kiesel said the school continuously looks at student and parent traffic to develop ideas on how to improve. “And while it is unfortunate that students will not be able to paint their particular spot,” he said, “we are looking at other opportunities for our seniors that would meet this need.”
This new change in parking has led the buses to change their layout from years prior. Now, the buses will be parked along the outside of the back parking lot. The former bus parking spots were converted to parking for staff.
One group of people who are both happy and unhappy are the senior band students.
“I think it’s nice that it’s first dibs, because I get to school early so I have a nice pick,” senior Payton Grotewiel said. Grotewiel likes the idea of “first come, first serve” because she gets to school so early for band. But it’s not an easy walk for some of the senior band kids. “I’m upset that I can’t park in the back parking lot though. I know a lot of other band kids want that too because it saves us a lot of walking.”
Fellow senior Rylee Shipes also has some strong opinions regarding parking and not having their own spot.
“I really don’t like the new parking lot because I was really looking forward to painting my spot senior year,” senior Rylee Shipes said. Many seniors, like Shipes, have been looking forward to painting their own parking spot just like the classes before them. But now with the new rules, the senior class is unable to partake in this rite of passage.
“I’d much rather have my own parking spot so that way I know where to go each day instead of wandering around the parking lot.” Shipes said.
