In order to better enforce rules relating to the student parking lot, a new parking attendant has joined the school staff. While the parking attendant was originally supposed to patrol the parking lot every day from 11-5 p.m., he has been and will continue to be absent indefinitely due to family medical issues.
“He is dealing with a major family medical issue and has not been at work,” Assistant Principal Bruce Coachman said. “The medical issue is confidential. We don’t know exactly when he will be back.”
According to Coachman, parking attendant Elwood Nolan will patrol the parking lots to prevent students from going to their cars and from going to off-campus lunch.
“We recognize that [students] put things in [their] car,” Coachman said. “We just ask that [they] get permission and that [they] don’t make it a habit of going out to the parking lot. There are students on campus that are allowed to access the parking lot and have permission to leave.”
The student handbook provides an explanation on student parking lot access– that during school hours students must go to the office to get permission to go to their cars.
According to Coachman, students are advised to carry their needed belongings into the school during the day rather than retrieving items throughout the day. The reason we don’t want students accessing their cars is that unfortunately, it sets an opportunity for students to go out there and conduct themselves in a way that maybe we can monitor them, and they may not be doing the things that we want them to do out there. — Assistant Principal Bruce Coachman
“Not being able to go out to your car and not having lockers makes it very challenging to carry around all of your stuff because some teachers don’t let you keep stuff in their rooms,” junior Kaya Czyz said.
Seniors who take dual credit and have an off period are allowed to access their car and leave the school during that time. Students with dual credit classes may also arrive on campus late or leave early depending on their dual credit class schedule.
“I think that senior privilege should be something that is allowed,” Czyz said. “I think that seniors should be allowed to go off campus for lunch because it should be an enjoyable year.”
Students involved in PALS, Student Council, or any other school organizations that must leave the campus at one point in the day to visit another campus may also access the parking lot with no repercussions.
“I can understand the reason for the rule, but the enforcement might be too strict,” senior Mason Hutchins said. “I don’t think that the no eating in the car rules is reasonable.”
To some, the rules seem overly restrictive, but they are put in place to limit any potentially poor decisions, according to Coachman.
“The reason we don’t want students accessing their cars is that unfortunately, it sets an opportunity for students to go out there and conduct themselves in a way that maybe we can monitor them,” Coachman said, “and they may not be doing the things that we want them to do out there.”
