School parking lots can be hectic, people racing for parking spots in the morning, and rushing to be first to leave at the end of the school day. At Ipswich High School there is no assigned parking, Would implementing assigned parking spots at Ipswich High School help solve some at the chaotic behavior that occurs in the school parking lot?

      I started researching what other schools did for parking in other schools. One article I read about school parking said  “assigned spots reduce the occurrence of fights that ensue when trying to park in the morning. Students do not have to fight over spots or unofficially assign spots amongst themselves, which could lead to accidents in the parking lot.” 

     Assigned spots at Ipswich High School would make mornings less chaotic and less of a race to get to “ your spot ” first. As for leaving at the end of the school day, the article said that “the consistency of assigned spots reduces chaos when students leave the parking lot each day.” I feel like if assigned parking were to be implemented in our school it would cut down a lot of the tumultuous behavior to get out of the parking-lot first. To get some thoughts from the staff and students of IHS, I decided to interview Mrs. Warner and Zack Dailey. 

     To start off my interview with Mrs. Warner I started off by asking her do you drive to school? She responded with “ Yes, I drive everyday.” I followed up by asking, do you ever struggle to find a parking spot? She responded with “No, because I normally arrive early enough to get a good spot.” The next question I asked is: do you normally park in the same spot? She said, “I have an area I normally park in but not a particular spot.” I also asked her do you get mad when someone takes your spot? She responded “No, not really, I just found another one nearby.” The last question I asked was do you think assigned parking spots at school be more effective? She replied  “No, because there’s still a spot for everybody and whoever gets there first deserves the spot.”

     To get some student input I interviewed Zack Dailey. I started off by asking him does he drive to school?  He responded “Yeah, I drive to school pretty much everyday.” The next question I asked was whether he thinks senior spots are important? He said “I feel like seniors should have a way to personalize their parking space as like an added bonus of being a senior.” I followed up asking do you ever struggle to find a parking spot? He said,  “No when I get to school there’s normally a spot in the area I park.” Next I asked, do you normally park in the same spot? He responded “I got a section that I like to park in.” The next question I asked is, do you get mad when someone takes your spot? He responded “No because there’s normally another.” The last question I asked was do you think assigned parking spots at school are more effective? He responded “No, because the earlier you get to school the more of a choice of spot you should have.” 

     Overall school parking lots can be a chaotic place. Adding assigned parking spaces could help eliminate some of the chaos that ensues on a daily basis.