Eric Johnson
As the school year reaches its mid-point and the seniors at Colonie High School become eager to graduate, the students begin to become frustrated with the rules that they are expected to follow in the prison that they call High School. A common complaint that repeatedly comes up with the senior class is the supposedly unfair requirements that come along with parking at the school. Student’s who own a car and want to drive to school are required to fill out a form and provide the school with their license and other information. Sounds reasonable right? The problem comes to place when the students are told that they must pay a required fee of $20. Many students believe that it is unfair for them to have to pay money to park just a few feet away from the school. Some students even go to major extents to avoid having to pay money by parking at the mall or at a location near the school. As a senior myself, paying my fee to park didn't really faze me until students around me brought to my attention the injustice that came along with paying the school $20. I thought about this for a while and that I kept on asking myself the same question “Where does all of this money go to?”
I asked around and found that mostly no one including teachers and administrators had any idea what the money went to and why students had to pay money at all. Becoming more curious, I visited the Shaker High School website and found nothing that answered my question except for that Shaker has all of the same regulations as Colonie does with the exception of being assigned to numbered parking spots. After visiting multiple other school websites the question still remained unanswered. I calculated how much the estimated amount of money it would take if about half of the senior class was to pay a fee for parking. The amount of money rounded up to be about $4,000. Now it’s clear that the school could defiantly use that kind of money but for what exactly?
Still asking myself the same question, I started to remember that there is one person that I see every morning directing traffic outside of the school. Hoping that they might know, I decided to go and ask the one person that might be able to finally answer my question. I quickly went down to the front of the school and found Officer Germaine standing near the main entrance. I took my pencil and paper and asked him if he could finally give me an answer a question. With a slightly sarcastic expression he agreed to answer. I explained to him that I was on a mission to find out why students are required to pay $20 for a parking permit, and how I was curious as to where all of that money went to. “I’m not completely sure how to answer that.” He said at first, but after about a minute of thinking he started to come up with an answer. “You know those beautiful yellow lines that you park in between every morning? [He grinned at me as he talked.] A lot of that money goes to painting those. The money also goes to the signs that I use to direct traffic and to the permit stickers that you put in all of your cars.” He then told me how necessary the payment was because without it seniors and other students would basically have nowhere to park in the morning. I thanked him for finally giving me an answer my question as I left the room.
I was relieved to know that all of the money that everyone complains about spending actually goes to something that students use as a privilege every day. Students will complain every year about how it is unfair to pay money just to park at school without knowing what it is even used for. Although it sounds like something that is worth complaining about, students don’t realize that what they are paying for is actually the ability to have a place to park in the morning.
