From the beginning of the school year until the end of the third quarter, the Ipswich High School parking lot is always full. Due to the limited parking lot size, students are forced to park on School Street or create their own parking spots in the lot. This results in students being marked late to school because they cannot find parking. According to Heather Jackson in an article entitled ‘Parking Problems Could Be Solved with Assigned Places’, she explains, “Parking in the student lot is causing students to get tardiness because of the overflow of cars and the number of students without parking passes. The problem will continue to grow as more and more sophomores are turning 16 and driving to school.” Although Ipswich doesn’t implement parking passes, it is definitely something that could be discussed as a way to ensure students have a place to park.
A large number of senior students arrive at school by approximately 7:35, and some are unable to find a parking spot. “I sometimes worry about finding a parking spot if I leave my house too late,” senior Nate Brady shares. With the parking lot and School Street filling up by about 7:35, there is little time to find a spot and make it to school on time. While this problem could be solved by leaving for school earlier, students shouldn’t need to worry about being late over finding a parking spot.
Parking passes have been brought up in the past, but there haven’t been any steps to further this. Surrounding schools have allowed seniors to purchase parking passes to reserve a parking spot. While Ipswich held a raffle for senior parking spots, only two senior students received spots. However, the parking problem can easily be solved by having seniors pay for a parking pass to reserve lot parking. Other schools, like Masconomet High School, have implemented this, and it seems to work. In a bigger school, a parking raffle is offered to juniors. Luckily in Ipswich, it can be reserved for sophomores. If the school calculated how many seniors and juniors there were, they would be able to decide how many spots were available and offer them up in a raffle. As a result, the school can use this money to help fund events such as prom.
With the overflowing parking lot and more sophomores receiving their drivers license, the question arises as to whether sophomores should be allowed to drive to school? “I don’t think sophomores should be allowed to drive to school. I believe they are too young and take parking spots from juniors and seniors,” junior Jake Petradelis elaborates. Ipswich High School in total has roughly 400 people, not including teachers. Without including freshman and half of the sophomores, there are approximately 200 students and teachers driving to school.
Teachers have designated spots that students often park in due to the lack of student parking. In addition, our school’s parking lot only has roughly 10 visitor parking spots, which are also sometimes occupied by students who are unable to find a parking spot. By the end of this year, there are a large number of sophomores gaining their licenses. This allows them the option to drive to school and unfortunately results in spaces meant for upperclassmen to be taken. Senior Cole Thomas says, “These kids don’t need a spot; they have been driven to school all year. They can live without a parking spot for 3 months.” Thomas offers a great point. Students who have gotten to school six months out of the year, whether it was from the bus or parent drop-off, shouldn’t be able to steal senior and junior parking spots.
Although the parking lot has emptied out from seniors going on the bridge program, this is a continuous issue that hasn’t been addressed. This year specifically, there has definitely been an increase in students driving to school, flooding the parking lot and School Street with vehicles. With the senior class graduating in June, the school will be offered a false sense of security, but this issue isn’t going away. Each year, a pattern will continue, and there will need to be change.
