Torch Staff
Editorial
Parents are supposed to teach us how to drive, but maybe they are the ones that need a driving lesson.
“The parking lots get hectic in the mornings when parents park in people’s parking spots or just stop in the middle of the road to let their child out. It interrupts the flow of traffic, which has become very frustrating to all of us who are trying to get to our spots on time,” senior Elizabeth McDonald said.
This school year, many of the students have had a problem in the school parking lot during drop-off in the morning. It becomes very aggravating to students who are trying to park in their own spots in the mornings.
These problems stem from parents parking in students’ parking spaces in the morning causing the students who are assigned to park there to have to either wait for their spot to open up or try to find another spot to park in.
“Parents keep parking in student’s spots and taking their sweet, sweet time to get out of them like they are their spots,” junior Preston Smith said.
“When parents park in student parking spots it causes a domino effect,” assistant principal Joy Norman said. If students wait for their spot to open up, they could become tardy for school, even though we arrived on time. This is frustrating to students because not only are they accumulating tardies that are not our fault, but it can also leave a negative impact on our education. Students are coming in late to classes and/or having to leave during class to move a car to the correct spot.
If students find another spot to park, it is probable that they will park in another student’s spot, which causes the same problem for another student.
Whether parents are unaware of the rules or simply do not care, the problem needs to be solved. The correct procedure is for the parents to enter through one of the three entrances to the school and follow the orange cones to go through the drop-off line.
We have come up with two potential solutions to fix the problem and ease the stress on the students as well as the administration.
If the procedure was revised and parents could only enter through the front of the building, it could make the drop-off line run more smoothly. Since parents would be entering through the front, they would automatically be put into the drop-off line and would not have to attempt to navigate the school parking lot as much. After they dropped their child off, they could continue following the line and exit through either exit at the back of the school.
Another option would be to make more widely known the proper way to go about the drop-off in the mornings. The school has already released a reminder via social media, but they could also reach out to parents and/or students through email.
The administration could also make it a topic that is discussed at freshman orientation since it is typically freshman parents who are the most unaware of the proper way to navigate the school parking lot since they are new to the school.
The high school parking lot seems like a safe place for new drivers, but that may not be so due to the chaos occurring in the mornings.
Following the chaos from the school parking lot during morning drop-off, Dyersburg High School made an Instagram post to inform parents of the proper procedure for drop off.
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