Graphic by Sam Lee
Allie Floros and Hannah Hepner
Managing Editors of News
With the new school year starting, Vice Principal Candice Beerman sent out an email to the school community explaining a new parking system.
The new system includes a lottery for seniors to enter. The seniors that were selected had one week to turn their paperwork and a 175 dollar check into the main office and then received a parking pass for an assigned parking spot. In previous years, seniors received a parking pass and could park in any student spot, rather than having a specifically assigned spot.
The sentiment among many seniors is relatively positive.
Senior Jordan Carey, who has a parking pass, is in favor of assigned spots.
“I guess I’m in favor of [the new system] because it guarantees that you have a spot and if you have a pass, someone won’t come in and just steal your spot,” Carey said.
Vice Principal Candice Beerman addressed one of the main concerns surrounding this new system in the email sent to all Newton South families and staff.
In the email, Beerman said: “If you have purchased a tag and another vehicle is parked in your space, come directly to the main office to report the vehicle and to receive a visitor parking permit to park elsewhere on campus until your spot is cleared. Do NOT simply park in another spot (yellow or white lined) as you will be subject to being towed without a visitor parking permit or a tag number corresponding to the student space.”
However, senior Alexandra Leiber, who also has a parking pass, recognizes that this solution is not always practical.
“If someone is in your spot, you have to go through all of these actions to get a visitor pass and end up probably being late to class, which defeats the whole purpose of parking at school,” Leiber said.
Shauna Pellauer, an English teacher, states that she’s excited about these new changes, in the hopes that it will break the previous arguments surrounding parking between the faculty and students.
“I don’t like being in the position of having to tell on kids who aren’t in their spots. I do because it makes me that mad, but I hope that this situation makes it so we’re less adversarial because that’s the part I don’t like, is feeling like we’re in this battle between teachers and students,” Pellauer said.
Carey agrees that this system prevents the problem of juniors parking in senior spots and seniors parking in faculty spots.
Junior Maggie Winters feels differently than Pellauer, explaining that there are many areas at South that could be turned into more spots for students, such as the grassy area on Brandeis Road. She finds it frustrating that she has to arrive at school extremely early just to ensure a parking spot.
“I see that seniors also have to park on Brandeis, which seems ridiculous because they don’t even have parking passes for all of the seniors… [The lack of parking spots] makes it harder for me to get a spot, which irritates me,” Winters said.
Junior Lily Guilette is new to driving to school, and agrees with Winters, stating that the administration has not been too understanding. She usually arrives at school at 6:45 a.m., and says that the spots on Brandeis are almost completely filled by 7 a.m.
“I talked to Mr. Stembridge about it, and he joked and told me I could always just sleep in my car, but that’s not that helpful…I think there needs to be more spaces provided because we shouldn’t have to get here earlier than we already do,” Guilette said.
Overall, students and faculty seem hopeful that this new system will help the parking situation, however, there is still not enough parking for juniors and seniors who do not receive passes. It is still unknown whether this system will be kept in place for current juniors next year.
“I think [the administration] will have to see how it goes this year and then decide…but I think assuming it works well this year, which I think it will, then I think it will be permanent,” Leiber said.
