Juniors and seniors who had not previously driven to school are now finding themselves trying to navigate the Jupiter High School parking lot with little to no experience. Certain procedures and rules are put in place to make the parking lots safer.
To park in the school parking lot, students need to have their parking passes displayed in their windshield or on their rearview mirror. Parking passes were available first come first serve at the end of last school year, containing the students’ designated spot number. Students who choose to park in another spot are penalized, even if permission is given by the spot owner.
“All students who have a parking pass need to park in the assigned parking spot,” Christine Rick, assistant principal in charge of parking, said. “If they choose to lend their parking pass to someone else because they’re not driving that day, and the monitor determines that it was the wrong car, they will forfeit their pass forever.”
Students with parking passes also need to maintain good grades and behavior throughout the year. Juniors must maintain at least a 3.0 GPA and Seniors must maintain at least a 2.5 GPA. Any discipline issues such as suspensions will also result in a student forfeiting their parking pass. Also, students can not have more than 10 tardies.
“It is a privilege to park,” Rick said. “It’s the student’s responsibility to follow the procedures.”
Normal road traffic patterns apply while entering and leaving the parking lots. There are also adults who direct traffic flow at the end of the day in order to let students leave in a safe, efficient manner.
“They have a good system,” Warner Bolt, senior, said. “The two ladies standing out there helps a lot, because if they didn’t have that it would just be chaos.”
One noticeable difficulty for new drivers is parking. For students who are not confident in their parking, it is alright to back up and try again when not parked straight. Also, backing into the spot may be a useful tactic for getting in and out easily.
“Learn how to back into a spot,” Samantha Oosterbaan, junior, said. “It makes it so much easier. once you start, you’ll never stop.”
If a student did not get a parking pass this year, there will be a Google form released in the spring to sign up for a parking pass for next year.
“It will open to the seniors first then we’ll let the juniors about three weeks after that. So if they are on that list, and there are enough spots, they will be guaranteed a spot as long as they fit the criteria,” Rick said.
