The hunt for parking spots is on as more students return to in-person learning, leaving the senior parking lot full due to the approval of 250 parking passes to seniors and juniors.

“Today I had to park really far away from the school, which sucked. I think seniors should be the priority when it comes to parking in the senior lot, especially after everything we’ve lost this year,” senior Abby Cigrand said.

Typically seniors are granted the right to park on campus, but with COVID-19 complicating the school year juniors were also allowed to park in the senior lot. Dean of Students Bryan Heap explained why both seniors and juniors were given campus parking privileges this year.

“When the schedule was changed to hybrid, the district determined that no student would be billed for student parking and we could issue double the number of parking tags since only half of the students would be attending half the day. Since we had issued more than double the number of tags, when the schedule change shifted to in person after spring break, we had a parking space shortage,” Heap said.

Heap continued, “Initially we decided to only allow the first 200 students who were given tags in the fall to park, but the week before the break, the village opened up nearby street parking for an additional 150 spaces. Since the tags had already been assigned and there was very short notice, the decision was made to have open student parking in any approved student area.”

Feeling deprived of their senior rights isn’t the only issue as some students, like senior Autumn Bretwisch, feel worried about coming to school because of the lack of parking spots available.

“I am always really scared that I’m going to get to school and there’s not gonna be a spot because if there is none left I have no other options of parking,” Bretwisch said.

The worrying continues as senior Kendall Swider explains how she asks a friend for a ride in order to not have to worry about finding a parking spot.

“The full senior parking lot is definitely an inconvenience because [students] have to leave early in order to get a spot and sometimes I even get a ride from a friend because I don’t want to have to worry about finding a [parking spot],” Swider said.

Even though many seniors feel like they aren’t the priority, Heap explained how seniors still have priority when it comes to student parking.

“It is an inconvenience for seniors if they arrive later and have to park on the street, but under the circumstances the majority would not have a space if we had restricted it to the 150 spaces in the lot. Most of the students who have parking permits are seniors, as they still received the priority,” Heap said.