For what feels like the hundredth time, the administrators have cooked up a new scheme to promote discipline and make a little money on the side. Grady has instituted parking permits required by all student drivers. These permits must be obtained from the office of the school, after providing a valid license.To aid in enforcing this new policy, the second parking lot has been locked up tight these past few weeks.
Many students feel the permits serve no purpose. Administrators claim to have an issue with non-students who don’t attend the school parking in the student parking lots. They feel this would be an effective resolution to the ongoing problem here. At the same time students feel the upper parking lot, located beside the trailers, should be available to students regularly.
“People already park illegally in the one parking lot we have because there is not enough space available,” junior Alex Fairley said. “This schools needs to focus on establishing a larger area for student parking before they go and try to start giving us permits.”
It has been rumored around Grady recently that seniors have the option of obtaining “priority spaces” or “assigned spaces” after paying a fee.
“I like the senior priority idea only because my sister is a senior so I get to use her spot,” sophomore Bradley Mackett said. “But overall it sort of shows a level of respect to the seniors as opposed to new drivers getting these spots because seniors have been going here longer and most of them have been driving longer.”
Students attending Grady have been known to only arrive to school early to get parking spaces.
“I know that students only come early to get a parking space because I do,” Taylor Williams said. “These parking permits are only going to cause more issues because some people don’t drive the same car everyday and it won’t be fair to them to get their cars towed or get ISS because they didn’t drive the same car.”
Assistant Principal David Propst said the consequence of not having these permits placed on your vehicles will be ISS or getting your car towed. Many students feel that his position is not valid because of the varying dynamics of the situation.
“Its not as simple as they think it is. And they won’t truly know how many problems this will cause because they don’t have to deal with this hassle daily.” Fairley said. “This whole idea is just stupid and will only last for a couple of weeks because I doubt Dr. Propst and Howard are really going to walk around everyday to check if every car has a permit in the window.”
Students across the campus have expressed their concerns.
“Even if seniors got priority spacing it wouldn’t be very effective because if they aren’t here one day and someone needs somewhere to park they’re just going to take their spot, and no one is really going to care about the fact that they paid for it,” Williams said.
These permits so far have not been publicly announced, although students are already beginning to receive theirs in the discipline office providing a valid license.
“The most I would pay for a priority space is $10 but overall its not really needed,” Bradley said. Overall students do not seem too fond of this idea and feel it should be dismissed.
