Student Parking Frenzy

With the highly anticipated return to full-time, in-person learning on Monday, April 12th, administrators anticipated a shortage of available parking spots for students on the SHS campus. Consequently, St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, located on First Parish Road across from Town Hall, kindly agreed to allow students to park on their property for free.

SHS administrators assigned approximately 60 juniors to this parking lot; however, to address concerns about traffic flow and students crossing First Parish Road, arrangements were made to have a police detail during the morning and afternoon rush. 

Nevertheless, some SHS student drivers were still feeling frustrated. Junior Brooke Pierotti described her confusion about the parking problem: “I’m confused on how this is such an issue considering juniors have been parking in the Gates lot for years, and parking spots have never seemed to be this big of an issue.”

Pierotti brings up a great point. Where did the student parking spots go? She’s not alone, as several juniors seem to be confused about whether there was an overflow of student drivers or a decrease in available parking spots.

SPS school buses are no longer parked near the Greenbush train station. Instead, these buses are now parked at Gates School, in the parking area known as the “Junior Lot.” Although this gives an explanation for the problem, these students did pay for their spots, which are much farther away than they originally anticipated. 

Junior Madeleine Smith, whose parking spot is located at St. Luke’s, described how this inconvenience adds about 15 minutes to her morning routine: “I am nervous because no one is assigned an actual numbered spot, and we are already adjusting to the full return to school.” She acknowledged, though, that she can handle it for the month before the seniors leave and their spots at SHS reopen. She added that she appreciates having a place to park. 

Another junior, Brendan Boyle, exclaimed how the traffic was chaotic getting in and out of the school campus. At the end of the day, there are not only cars coming from the junior lot, the senior lot, and St. Luke’s parking lot, but there are also parents picking up students from the middle school.