-Introduction –

Have you ever experienced any sort of issue while driving in the JCHS Parking Lot? Well, as of June 17, 2024, the office at JCHS has distributed 243 total parking permits combined between juniors and seniors. Out of 196 total seniors, 164 of them have purchased a parking pass. Out of 219 total juniors, 79 have purchased a pass. There are roughly 180 total spots for students to park in whether it be in the lot, or side parallel parking spots. Assuming 243 students drive to school every day, this leaves over 60 left to find parking elsewhere. There are other available parking options such as the hill on Woodmere, Deerfield, or the Westville Pool parking lot, but most students and particularly seniors, have mixed opinions on this issue. 

We decided to interview several students and teachers to hear their input and feelings about the parking lot situation. Leah Strumolo, a junior, stated, “In my opinion, the parking lot is not organized at all. There needs to be more parking spots and seniors should be able to have assigned spots. No one wants to park at Westville or up the hill, and there’s too many spots for teachers and substitute teachers and aids park in student spots so there needs to be more spots.” 

Ms. Stafford said “First of all, teachers should have their own spot. That goes without saying, because some teachers travel between school buildings, and people always park in Mrs. Stevie’s spot when she comes in late. So, she is always scrambling to find a space because kids park in her spot. So, in terms of teachers I 100% think that they should have an assigned spot, but I think it would be nice if they just gave unassigned permits to seniors. I just think that it’s different with students. It would be very difficult to police assigned spots with students, because you would have to have somebody out there everyday checking the spots or everybody will try to park in spots that don’t belong to them. I would like to advocate for seniors, but the system would have to be workable. Otherwise, Mr. Devlin and the vice principals would be swamped with work. They don’t want to spend their days doing that, so if you could work it out that could be managed, I think that would be good” 

Senior Kristen Bongo stated:  “Personally, I think the school parking lot is unorganized. Many other schools assign their seniors and juniors designated spots and finding a place to park is not an issue. I know our parking lot is a lot smaller than other schools. Therefore, seniors should have priority parking in the lot. Juniors should be sent to Woodmere or other  side streets,  as well as the Westfield pool lot, and when they become seniors they will appreciate this privilege. 

“The parking lot issues have caused numerous accidents and have taken the benefit out of other senior privileges, such as coming in late for study and leaving for open campus lunch. Most of us are not able to actually go out or enjoy our lunch in leisurely fashion, because the parking lot gets filled too quickly. The most pressing problem though is the amount of spots in the parking lot. Since there is no way to expand the parking lot, there are solutions such as mainly allowing the seniors assigned spots based on their birthday or implementing a carpooling system as seen in the West Essex District. I also believe that the JCHS district should send a Google Form to all seniors, so their concerns and potential solutions can be acknowledged and addressed by the school.” 

While our sample size is small, the other interested parties shared similar ideas and sentiments. Many students feel that parking in the lot should become a Senior privilege, with juniors getting spots through a lottery system only for the leftover spots. Others believe that spots could be assigned like faculty spots to help organization. Whatever the case, we agree that student parking has become an issue at JCHS. We hope that a new system could be instituted that solves these problems for future students.