As students tackle learning how to drive, they are faced with the worry of the parking lot on campus. To park in the junior or senior parking lots, all students must purchase a parking pass of $5. Sophomores, like many of the students without a pass, are unable to park at the school and resort to parking elsewhere. The closest lots, the Rocklin Pony Fields or the Whitney Park, have become an unofficial expansion to campus parking.

Although the school strictly enforces these policies, students without a pass dismiss the regulations, even at the risk of being ticketed and given detention. The dismissal of these regulations lay behind the difficulty for drivers who got their license late to get a pass. 

“If you sign up before school stories and get your name on the list, as long as you get your license, you have all your paperwork. It’s a pretty simple process. It’s when you run into last minute you get your license late or something like that, then it becomes a little more difficult to get, and then if students are not abiding by the rules, they can lose their parking pass so you do move up when once you get on the waitlist,” Discipline Technician Mr. John Gonzales said. 

These students without the first priority of a pass are experiencing the consequences of a campus with more drivers than available parking. 

“The portal opened when we were AP testing [last spring]. So all the parents were rushing at the same time and not the kids so we had to get the information to them beforehand, which was kind of difficult,” Karys Raquel said.

On the other hand, students with a parking pass experience similar consequences as the ones that don’t. New drivers and the cramped layout of the lots become a breeding ground for reckless and dangerous driving. 

“This guy cut in front of me one time, and I had to break because I almost hit him,” Marlie Dixon said. 

Additionally, Dixon also noted the environmental dangers that appear in the student parking lots. 

“We’ve seen some trash including alcohol bottles. I was also trying to park in this one spot and there was garbage all in it, so I had to try to find a new place,” Dixon said.

Not only did the students attest their witness of garbage and other illegal items in the lots, but also the administrators expressed their views on this problem. 

“It makes me sad and upset that people come here because it’s not just our students doing that, it’s also the people from other schools that come in, and we’ve been there you know, partying out there during games and stuff like that. It really bothers me that people can’t just clean up after themselves,” Gonzales said.  

As a way to prevent chaos and improve cleanliness, students reveal their opinions about the solutions to these difficulties that cause danger to where it has to be safe. 

Landrey Gold said, “Some people have no other way of getting into school. Just give everybody a parking permit if they really need one. The people that live farther away should get the parking permits first.” 

BY SARAH CHOI & LYLA GUNDERSON