Right now the early bird gets the worm when it comes to school parking, but change is coming.

A new parking permit procedure for the next school year has been announced.

These changes were prompted by concerns about student safety and convenience. The goal of the new plan is to provide solutions to those issues. A major change is that students will now submit their requests for a parking permit via Google Forms and be assigned a parking spot for the next school year.

After the last school year ended, assistant principal Tim Ridley, who handles school parking, noticed that changes needed to be made. A new plan for providing students with permits to park at the school was then proposed by Ridley and was built upon by Danita Cobble, Principal Chris Mason and Assistant Principals Kari Stewart and Cynthia Bell.
“It’s something we talked about after last year. With everything Google now, me and Mr. Mason sat down and said, ‘there has to be an easier way to do this, a more efficient way for everybody’. So, I met with Mrs. Cobble, who’s a district technology person, and we kind of came up with this Google Form to give a try,” said Ridley. The previous parking procedure has caused students to arrive at school very early to get a parking spot, as it’s a first-come-first-serve system.

As well as causing safety concerns, the last procedure seemed generally inconvenient. Some students aren’t eligible for a parking pass because they have an excessive amount of unexcused absences, more than one behaviors suspension, or any drug/alcohol suspensions. If a student requested a parking pass and they weren’t eligible they’d have to be told by Ridley or another school administrator, taking up unnecessary time.

Those problems are intended to be solved with the new procedure. Students will submit their requests via the Google Forms, which has been linked to on the school Twitter, Facebook and website. The form asks to provide name, grade and the time of receiving a restricted license. Optionally, the make, model and color of your car can be provided as well.

Once eligible students have been picked out, juniors and seniors will be randomly assigned to parking spots. Seniors will be assigned first and get spots closer to exits. In the past, students didn’t have assigned spots. “I would love it if we had enough parking spots for everybody but we don’t. So it kind of makes it more fair and random,” said Ridley. Students will then receive an email notifying them of their parking spot, solving the issue of inconvenience for the staff. According to Ridley, there are roughly 275 parking spots and 175 students have submitted requests.

When the new procedure is put in place next school year student opinions on the subject will most likely come to light, positive or negative.