Anyone who parks at SHS knows it can be very hard to find a spot sometimes. Whether, it is parking in the morning for school, or coming to watch an event or sports game, parking spaces fill up fast.
During many sports games, you will find many cars parked on the side of the road. Not only, does this make parking more inconvenient for people, but it can make it less safe for people to park.
Students have two places they are allowed to park during the day–the student parking lot in the back, or the very back of the parking lot in the front. Teachers have their own parking spaces closest to the school, but these fill up fast and some teachers end up needing to park either with the students or in the front parking lot. Anyone visiting the school parks in the front lot, and in some cases, the road, or some other spot, know how difficult it can be to park.
There are almost no spots to park outside of the school campus. The only parking lot close enough to the school would be St. Mark’s church. In past years, when there were fewer available spots, this was more commonplace for students to park. The problem is that St. Mark’s is about a ten minute walk to the school, and this walk would be even worse when it’s raining, snowing, or if it is cold outside.
Not only is parking difficult at SHS, but leaving school at the end of the day or after a sports game can be a very frustrating and time-consuming task. The front parking lot gets very crowded with parents waiting to pick up their children 30 minutes before school is over, and by the time school gets out at two o’clock there is already a line of cars that goes out into the street.
So, what is the solution?
One solution which would be the easiest to put in place would be assigned or numbered parking. This would just mean that the school would assign each student and staff member an assigned spot to park in. This is already used by many high schools to stop problems with parking.
This would help solve the issue of finding spots to park for students and staff during the day, but this still wouldn’t solve the issue of not having enough spots for visitors, and might just make it harder for visitors to find a spot to park, especially during the school day.
Another solution to fix the parking would be to make more parking spaces. The big issue with this solution, though, is that this would take up a lot of room and there is not much extra space at SHS for more parking. The only major open spaces on the property are used for sports fields. This solution would also be very expensive, and could potentially make the task of leaving even harder.
Lastly, SHS could have a parking garage. This is the most unrealistic solution but would probably work the best out of them all. This would be a very expensive and time-consuming solution, but this solution would take up less space than a new parking lot and would add even more parking than a parking lot would. This would also help bring down the amount of traffic and crowding issues that the current parking lots have.
The easiest solution for staff and students that struggle to find parking would be to arrive early, but is that really a solution? Are there solutions? Who knows. For now, plan on parking issues at all times.
