If you aren’t assigned a parking spot in the student lot, parking at school is nearly impossible. Street parking is not allowed, no parking is available near the nearby townhomes, and Robert Frost Middle School only allows a few students with permits to park in their lot. That means options for parking near school, especially for juniors, are running out.
The nearby vacant parking lot, Rockshire, being 0.3 miles away from the school, has been a place to park for juniors and those few seniors who do not have a parking spot. Recently, the city of Rockville has planned to start construction on townhomes in Rockshire. This construction will prevent students from parking there. “I got a notice on my car a couple weeks ago from a construction company while I was parked in Rockshire, saying that if I parked there again I’d get fined. Ever since then, getting to and from school has been really hard,” senior Tyler Coapstick said.
This parking notice has made students try to park in other areas. “I tried applying for a parking spot at Robert Frost and I was denied, as I was denied when I applied for a spot in the student lot,” junior Addison Purvis said.
Students have now been forced to park at lots that are much farther from the school. “My mom’s house is in Urbana so I have to drive myself and the past few weeks I have had to park in a lot that’s over a mile away from the school,” Purvis said.
The plan for construction was officially set on June 6, according to the City of Rockville website. A week before the notice was placed on cars, I was parking in the lot in the morning and a man in a truck came to my car and had me roll down my window and told me to tell everyone they need to find somewhere else to park because the next day his company was going to fine people parked in the lot. The next day, cars were still parked there and nothing happened.
No construction has started yet, even though the notice came out weeks ago. As of now, cars can still be seen in the lot. “I feel like there is constant issues with parking in the Rockshire lot because of construction but nothing has ever actually started, so I can see why some students would still be parking there, especially if they have no other option,” junior Danielle Rubin said.
