If I got up early everyday and left for school at 7:30, then I
wouldn
’t be bothered so much by parents who drop off their kids in the
parking lot, holding up traffic. After all, it only shaves about 30
seconds off of my day, and in the grand scheme of thing, 30 seconds
isn’t very long.
If I got up early everyday and left for school at 7:30, then I wouldn’t be bothered so much by parents who drop off their kids in the parking lot, holding up traffic. After all, it only shaves about 30 seconds off of my day, and in the grand scheme of thing, 30 seconds isn’t very long.
If I set my own schedule and made my own hours, then I really wouldn’t care if I arrived somewhere at 8 o’clock on the dot, or 8 o’clock and 30 seconds.
The school, however, does care. 30 seconds late is as good as 5 minutes late which might as well be 30 minutes late if you have one of those classes where they rule with an iron fist and take off .5 percent of your final grade for every tardy.
A good friend of mine has Civics first period and wakes up painfully early every morning to accomplish the task of getting to class on time.
I, however, do not set my own schedule, nor do I leave for school at 7:30.
Every morning hundreds of students, myself included, hop into our cars at the last possible moment in order to make it to school right on time. That doesn’t mean we drive fast; in fact, I happen to drive the speed limit (lately anyway) and know many other teens who do the same, contrary to popular belief.
What it means is that after three years of travel experience, we’ve mastered the art of knowing exactly how long it takes to get to school.
Sometimes we’re wrong and we encounter some unexpectedly bad traffic. Roads are public, anyone can use them, and sometimes there are more cars than usual. In that case we take out our notepads and recalculate our estimated travel time so that we aren’t late the following morning.
Sometimes the roads are clear and we get to school surprisingly early despite having left at our usual time. On those days we just smile and talk to our friends for a few minutes before class.
But most of the time, we are right on schedule, pulling into the parking lot with only 30 seconds to spare, exactly how long it takes to walk from our cars to our first period class, only to get stuck behind a parent in an SUV taking up the entire lane as the bell rings in our ears.
Now, it would seem as if the wise thing to do would be to adjust and leave even earlier. And grudgingly, I have started to do just that. So yes, I’ll be the first to admit that students should leave early if they want to avoid this problem altogether. But many students still won’t. And the point isn’t what we should do, the point is what we shouldn’t do.
We shouldn’t have to change our schedule because parents are doing something they shouldn’t be doing. Road traffic is unavoidable and there is nobody to blame for that. But we can blame parents for being in the parking lot when there are signs that clearly state that they shouldn’t be.
So even though I’m going to start leaving earlier to make sure I get to school on time, I still maintain that it’s my right not to have to. It’s my right because I paid for that right. Last year I gave the school $65 so I could have the right of arriving whenever I want and having an empty spot waiting for me, regardless of how crowded the rest of the parking lot is.
Hundreds of students have paid for a similar right and yet we still come to school to find that our spots are blocked by huge minivans unloading half a dozen kids each.
There is another traffic problem that also causes students to be late sometimes. In order to turn into the parking lot heading east on Main, one has to make a left turn through an endless stream of parents leaving the school going west on Main. Oftentimes it can be many minutes before some kind individual stops and lets students into the parking lot. Of course after the first few they invariably become impatient and cut through the remaining students, stopping traffic once more.
Again, while a couple of minutes aren’t a big deal if I’m going out to lunch with my friends, it makes a difference if I’m going to be late for class.
I don know how many moms and dads have minute-sensitive appointments they have to get to right away, but for the ones who don’t, it would be very courteous to stop and let students pass.
This situation is however very different from the parking lot situation in that the parents leaving school have the right of way on Main. While it is only decent that parents should stop to let students enter the parking lot, they have the right not to.
But they do not have the right to enter the parking lot without a parking permit. If they want to buy a parking permit so that they can drop off their kids, then sure, why not. But there is a perfectly good loading circle at the front of the school that is designed specifically so that people can be dropped off without slowing traffic.
Students who get dropped off in the parking lot sometimes defend their parents’ actions by saying that they don’t need a parking permit since they aren’t actually parking. That’s like saying that I can drive through someone’s garage as long as I don’t get out of my car.
The students pay to use the parking lot. It may be on public school property, but it is still a private lot, open only to those who have bought permits.
We buy parking permits to make it easier for us to get to school on time. Parents shouldn’t be making it harder.
Yasser Elassal is a senior at Live Oak High School and editor-in-chief of the student newspaper, the Oak Leaf. He alternates writing Teen Perspective columns with Cindy Hernandez and Courtney Love Gavin. Contact him at ed******@*************es.com
