Parking spots for juniors are often difficult to obtain. The portal to apply for parking prioritizes seniors and opens up weeks earlier for them, while juniors have to wait. The senior class of 2026 consists of 470 people, meaning that by the time juniors can apply, the parking lot will be mostly full.
In past years, juniors have parked at the Rockshire lot; however, the EYA development company that owns the lot has contacted the school and said students are forbidden from parking there, and anyone who parks there will be towed. Parking at Frost is another option, but space is limited there, too, and juniors need to be approved by the Frost administration. Essentially, juniors are going to have trouble finding parking and are going to need to figure it out on their own. “I’m not telling them they can’t drive; they just can’t park on school grounds, but these are things they have to work on as an individual,” Business Administrator Arlin De La Rosa said.
This year was an especially tough year for juniors, with fewer than 10 spots being available to them. With the large senior class, only about 4% of juniors were able to get a spot at school. “I got it from dual enrollment, and since I have no first period, it’s been convenient because my parents don’t need to drive me and my sister twice, and I can drive myself up,” junior Caleb Cook said.
In past years, the system was seniors first and then juniors, but when it came to narrowing down which juniors got it, it was first-come, first-served. In recent years, the school decided who gets spots by prioritizing those who have reasons to need one. The system prioritizes internships and dual enrollment the most, meaning if juniors don’t do either of these, they’re out of luck. “We prioritize some commitments over others, so if you have dual enrollment or internships, they would trump a student with other commitments,” De La Rosa said.
Juniors have expressed their frustration with the system, saying it shouldn’t be fully based on grade, and the portal to apply for a spot should open for both grades at the same time and narrow it down based on out-of-school commitments instead. For example, a junior with dual enrollment should get priority over a senior without after-school commitments. “I don’t have a spot, so I am parking in front of someone’s house. It’s annoying having to walk so far to my car every day, especially when I have baseball,“ junior Luca Phillips said.
The system has always prioritized seniors over juniors. “There are some seniors who are the youngest kids in their grade, so it wouldn’t be fair to have them competing with older juniors who got their permits before them,” De La Rosa said.
