Parking Changes Raise Concern Among Rising Seniors

Next year, ELHS administrators and the junior senate are making changes to the parking system of ELHS. Senior parking spots will be extended to include all spaces behind the football field and along the firehouse, creating an additional 20 spots available to seniors. These spots are allowed to be painted, and at the end of next year, maintenance will repaint the additional spots. Last year, the spots were chosen via a Google Form on a first-come-first-serve basis, a process elected by the class of 2023
senate. Though, each class decides their own process on how to distribute senior spots. This fall, the class of 2024 decided to host a lottery system where seniors must pay $50 for a single ticket (the price of a normal parking pass). Students will have the an option of adding in additional $10 tickets on top of their entry $50 ticket to increase the chances of getting a space. “I’m hoping that students will utilize it as the money for extra tickets goes straight to the 2024 senate,” said junior class president Sidhaarth Bulusu. If a student does not win a spot, the $50 is returned to them, but the additional $10 tickets are not. Each student can only puchase a maximum of five extra tickets. “It’s a fundraiser. The goal is to raise money for a cheaper senior prom and class trip,” junior class advisor Jennifer Brush said. If someone’s name is not picked during the raffle and they paid for additional tickets, that money will not be refunded. “I can’t believe they are actually doing this. It feels like kids with wealthier families are at a big advantage and high school parking shouldn’t be that way,” junior Jayla Washington said. Although the lottery is intended to make the system more fair compared to the first-come-first-serve system of years past, some students think it will have the opposite effect because of the extra tickets. “In past years, it went like the first 40 or so people to submit the form at a certain time got a spot, but what if you’re working at that time or don’t have wifi? For that reason, we are giving everyone a week or so to get their papers in and then we will randomly draw names,” Ms. Brush said. When and where exactly the raffle tickets will be drawn remains undecided, but some ideas include the senior picnic or a different class event. “We made these changes to the senior parking system because we understood that a lot of people that really wanted spots weren’t getting them. We thought that having more spots for seniors specifically would encourage people to park in the right places and design a spot,” Vice President of the junior class Georgia Anglin said.