Parking Lot Chaos

By James Yu April 2, 2025

The instant the school’s bells ring to conclude sixth period, the race has commenced: students surge into a labyrinth of cars; roaring engines ignite; and for trailing drivers trapped in the chaos, temperatures soar as piercing horns simultaneously sound across the lot. Each day, hundreds of students—some driven by their parents and many driving themselves—flock into and out of the busy parking lot. Despite the school administration’s diligence in managing the waves of traffic, the issue routinely resurfaces each day. 

Students are only allowed to enter and park in the school’s main parking lot. This policy inherently drives congestion, as the lot has only three entrances. Additionally, AP of Student Services Sibel Ilsever explains that despite the school administration’s frequent insistence, drivers will still utilize both exit lane routes available to them when leaving the parking lot’s single drop-off zone. Ilsever adds that many drivers default to driving in the left lane, resulting in over usage of the middle parking lot exit. 

To bypass traffic, students frequently take advantage of the adjacent staff parking lot and the restricted staff-only road behind the school. However, this inconveniences the school’s staff who rely on their designated parking lot to easily access their classroomss before students. Ilsever furthers that the school’s access road is utilized by district vehicles, critical to school operations, and is too narrow to facilitate student drop-off. 

“Since there are limited alternatives for parking off-campus, reserving parking space for staff is imperative for teachers to arrive to class on time,” Priya Garcia, English Department, said. 

In efforts to reduce traffic, the school’s administration and two campus supervisors are stationed across the parking lot each day to direct traffic for drivers and pedestrians during peak hours. However, the administrators’ are occasionally occupied with other responsibilities across campus, leaving the parking lot understaffed. This short-staffing, in combination with traffic inherent to the parking lot, often results in unwarranted frustration directed at the school administration, with drivers frequently venting and yelling at staff managing traffic in the parking lot.

The school also manages traffic by mandating parking permits for student drivers. Purchasable at the bank, a parking permit allows the holder to park in the parking lot during school hours. These permits not only ensure that only a certain amount of cars are parked in the parking lot each day, but also help the school guarantee that vehicles parked at school are owned by students.

“There is always plenty of traffic when I am driving out of school. When I am in a rush to get home, the traffic can be a real hindrance. Having parking permits helps alleviate traffic by capping the number of cars parked in the lot,” Junior Junseo Lee said. 

Although many park their cars in the parking lot, students are denied access to their parked cars during school hours due to the school's closed-campus policy, which encourages them to stay on school grounds where there is proper supervision for their safety. Indeed, while the parking lot is on school grounds, monitoring hundreds of students’ activity in their vehicles would pose an arduous task for the often spread-thin administration, who must enforce school rules across all of campus.  

Overall, while the race to beat the traffic is nowhere near the finish line, the school administration is working hard to ensure students have a space to enter, exit and arrive at school each day. 

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About the Contributor

James Yu is a Junior at Leland High School and Page Editor for the Sports Section. He loves listening to music and reviewing the newest releases as Music Columnist. Outside of Journalism, he enjoys debating for the debate team, hanging out with friends, and sleeping.