Juniors Not So Hot in the Lot
Editorial
NEIRAD enilno edition
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At the time of birth of this Darien High School building, there was hope in the student body of having space for juniors to park on the new campus. This hope has long since faded away, and most likely will not return.
Currently, almost all available parking spaces have been allotted for either seniors or faculty. The faculty can park in the areas closest to the building; visitors to the school park across from the front entrance; and seniors use the remaining spaces.
The only place available (albeit limited) for juniors to park is around the outer edge of the fields in the front of the school, but it is too far away to be monitored by the administration. Besides, would it be in anyone’s best interest to have kids with recently acquired licenses have to parallel park?
It’s clear that there aren’t enough spaces to fit the juniors’ vehicles in the DHS parking lot. And with the class sizes increasing, adequate parking for seniors is expected to become an even bigger issue in the future. (See “The More Frosh the Better” by Emily Deleo on page 1 of the September 2008 Neirad print edition for more on the growing student population.)
If the administration allows juniors to park, they would have to fight for a space. The only way to create more spaces would be to take out a field or bulldoze the woods, but DHS Athletics can’t afford to lose any school fields with the Town of Darien’s minimal field space and the neighbors who argued against football stadium lights and a pool would come together in rage against the needed divider between them and the busy school. Another option would be to transform the courtyard into a parking lot. However, that could turn the well-laid out design of the high school campus into a messy array of cars. The administration then may not allow students to cut across the courtyard parking lot because it would be easy and tempting for students to hang out in their cars during their frees.
However, there may not be a need for so many spaces for juniors. With the new Connecticut driving laws, few juniors have their licenses towards the beginning of the school year. It would be pointless to create new parking spaces only to have most remain unused until mid-year.
If the administration won’t open up the parking lot to the junior class, why not grant special parking privileges to juniors who have more of a need to drive to school? The average DHS student can take the bus school: driving to school isn’t essential. However, students who participate in sports must stay late after school and need a way to get home with their heavy equipment. The school could open up a limited amount of parking to juniors with special parking needs if there was the space. The only problem is that there isn’t the space.
Junior parking isn’t just a matter of the administration’s restrictions; it is a matter of being physically impossible due to space limitations. It's a shame that juniors aren't able to take their car to school, especially those who, like me, are burdened by having to maneuver a big bag of sports equipment and a hot tea mug on the bus. But because of the layout of the school property, juniors and underclassmen will just have to accept the fact that they have to wait until senior year to drive.
