A car is a right of passage in teenage years. The parking pass that must accompany the car in a school parking lot, however, is not. High school students should not be required to pay a fee in order to park in their own school parking lot, and we should stop normalizing this blatant robbery.
A school parking lot is exactly what it sounds like, a parking lot for people who come to school everyday. Students who attend the school should not be required to pay for the “privilege” of parking a car. If I am required to come to school daily and no family member can drop me off, I should not be punished for needing somewhere to leave my car for a couple hours while I am in classes. Not to mention, the parking permit only allows you to park in the front parking lot, the student parking lot. If I was paying special admission for the back parking lot, maybe the 15$ permit would make sense. Furthermore, the parking permit only guarantees access. If, suddenly, every student who could drive had a car, and there weren’t enough parking spaces, the pass would literally be worth nothing.
In some schools, paying for a pass is justified, as students bid for closer spots to campus entrances, and then own that spot for the entirety of the school year. Students will paint the spot, lobby to be next to friends, and blow hundreds of dollars, which goes to the school. This idea is fun, and interesting, as students who can afford it get the spots they want, and those who can’t aren’t barred from parking, they simply do not get the popular spots. At Irvingtonall the closer spots are reserved for carpool or teachers, but the rest of the student body pays for a free for all. If the pass truly grants parking, and allows you in the parking lot, the idea should carry over in all things: students should be required to pay for walking on the school concrete, touching school doors, and using school desks.
While the above idea is a little far-fetched, it truly pinpoints the idea that paying for the ability to sit in a lot is not reasonable or fair. If the 15$ that random students pay is truly needed for school funds, then bidding for the spots, as mentioned above, would bring far greater revenue than the offhanded 15$. Not to mention, there is no official cause this money is going to. Perhaps if all the money was promised to a parking lot fund that would allow the lot to eventually get repairs, or become nicer, then there would be a true cause behind the passes, but as far as I am informed, this is not the case.
Finally, the question of space comes to play. Supporters of the parking pass may argue that there simply isn’t enough space for every student to park, so the parking passes may help us keep a cap on student parking. However, there are more than enough spaces for every single student who currently parks to continue parking. Before and after school, and during lunch every day, not a single car is displaced. Everyone who needs a spot currently has one, so why charge for them? There is no demand for this supply-and-demand chain. Interestingly enough, many students park at the Irvington Park parking lot because it is public, not charged, parking. If the school is truly having trouble keeping kids on campus, remove the price of being allowed to drive to a school you attend.
