What do you all think?

[sneakymom]

This isn't about cats.  It's about kids- high school ones. 

My first question to you all is this- when you were in high school (or if you still are), did you ride the bus or drive yourself to school? 

I have a Senior and a Freshman.  The senior got her licence over last summer.  A year ago- the car I was driving- a 2000 Chevy Venture needed 3K worth of work done on it.  Dh went and bought another car (2010 Ford Focus) that I drive.  We also got the van fixed, figuring that teaching/ letting a 16 year old drive a "tank" around town is a whole lot safer than some of the smaller vehicles.  She wasn't thrilled with it at first.  But has since admitted to me that yes- it's not exactly a "cool" car to be driving- but "a" car is better than "no" car.

So anyways- she wanted to drive it to school.  At her school, Juniors and Seniors are allowed to drive as long as you buy a $15 sticker at the beginning of the year (which I did). 

This school is only 5 years old.  Across the street from it is a vacant lot.  With a "road going nowhere".  It's zoned for business, but I'm guessing since we have such a slow economy, they're having a time selling it.  So- there's about 30 kids (underclassmen/ kids without stickers) who park over there.  The kids call it "redneck parking"

  Yeah- there's a rule on the books about not driving- but it's been "wink/wink" you can park across the street.  However, dd has said there's been some near misses between kids and cars.  And just 1 incident of a kid getting hurt could mean serious trouble to a school system that already has financial issues. 

So, the school has decided to enforce it.  I got 2 phone calls over the weekend, and the kids were warned on Friday.  Not only are they closing the road off- they're going to have police officers at the site and in the parking lot to make sure that ONLY kids with stickers are driving to school. When I took the youngest into school this morning (she went in late b/c she's had whatever crud's been floating around the house for the past week)- sure enough the "road to nowhere" was blocked off.  I didn't see any police cars in the parking lot.  But I'll bet it was a mess there this morning. 

So- how would you all feel?  As a parent of a kid who made her wait- I have no sympathy for the kids who aren't supposed to be driving.  There is a bus for after school activities.  Yeah- it doesn't drop your kid off at the same bus stop they normally get off. If your kid is staying after school- and they need a ride you deal with it.  You find someone to help.  I've done that for people who've had activites with the kids and I knew that their parents might not be able to get them in time.

  I had a few instances where dd was "stuck" at school b/c I couldn't get there- dh couldn't get there.  It was no fun- but I eventually got her. She only had to wait 20 extra minutes or so.  It was a pain- I had 3 different voicemails on my phone- but could do NOTHING- I was stuck in traffic a half-hour away.

Thanks for listening.

Cheryl 

 

[calico2222]

I'm confused, are you worried about your daughter driving to school, or asking if she should get the $15 permit to park in the school parking lot? If you're asking about the permit, buy it. If you're worried about your daughter driving, that's up to you. I don't know if your daughter is a safe driver since I haven't been in a car with her. I started driving to school as soon as I got my license, but I didn't get it until I was 17. 

I honestly think it would be safer to get the permit for the school parking lot. That way, anything that happens in the parking lot is under school jurisdiction while anything in the "redneck parking" is not under their authority. 

 

[nerdrock]

I'm a little confused as well. 

I just wanted to add something, I don't know if it's the same for the area that you live in or not. When I was in high school we had something similar, although I think our parking passes were $5 for the year. You could drive to school and park there as long as you were old enough to drive and had your license. I lived far enough away that it took me about 45 minutes to walk to school but close enough that there was no bus (other than city bus). My mom would drive me to school most mornings but often couldn't pick me up. I had a part time job right after school (I would have to start at 3 and school ended at 2:30) so it was really hard to coordinate my shifts with the times one of my parents could pick me up and take me to work. When I got my license they helped me buy a car, I drove it to school pretty much every day. 

 

[Willowy]

Will it make much difference if they prevent parking in the empty lot? I know that the kids here who can't park in the school lot (those who want to keep their shotgun in the rack in the pickup, those who want to keep their naughty bumper stickers, etc.) will just park on the street, like any regular citizen. I think it's good to prevent kids congregating in an unsupervised area like that, but they can't really tell anyone with a license they can't drive. All they can control is parking in the school lot.

 

[sneakymom]

I'm sorry if that sounded kind of dis-jointed

  We've had the "creeping crud" in this house for a week- and I've had lack of sleep due to myself/dd/dh having coughing fits in the middle of the night. 

I guess I should have phrased it this way "Is the high school being fair to 10th graders who have their licence- but yet can't take a car to school, even though the state trusts them with one"?  I had a discussion about this with a person I know who lives in another state.  Her dd got her licence in 10th grade- and started going to school in her own car immediately b/c she worked etc after school, and with 2 working parents, scheduling pickup/dropoff would be a nightmare. 

Then I remembered that the kids next door never drove themselves to school until they were Juniors.  And they were at a different high school than the girls.  I think it's a district-wide policy, b/c some of the high schools in the area are older and don't have lots of parking for the teachers, let alone 200-300 kids (dd's class is about 510).  So even though this school is in an area where they could very easily buy more property and expand the parking lot (and that would make football games just SO much easier- we went to homecoming last year and it was a nightmare getting in/out of the parking lot), some of the other 6 schools in the district don't have the land to do so.  And then there'd be complaining parents that say "well the kids at dd's school can drive sophomore year, why can't we"?

The other problem is safety.  Like I said- there's been some near-misses of kids getting hit by other kids exiting the parking lot- going over to the empty lot b/c one or both of the parties weren't watching what they were doing (and many 16-18 year olds don't.  SIGH)  So Willowy- I guess it will.  I've seen some pretty nasty "stuff" written on the cars at school and as far as I know nobody's ever gotten into trouble.  Now parking in an area for teachers- that's another story.  A couple of kids got yelled at by security a few months ago (I was waiting for the other child to take her to the orthodontist) because they had mistakenly parked in a teacher's area and that's a BIG no-no.

And as a side note- my 18 year old dd was quite pleased when they got rid of "redneck parking" as she puts it

  "Mom- getting out of the parking lot was just so much easier.  Besides, "I" had to wait until my SENIOR year to drive a car to school- those kids can wait too". 

  May I add that the child had no interest at all to get her licence until last year b/c she had issues with the driver's ed teacher at school and she didn't pass range in drivers ed.  I think it was the couple of times that she had to wait for me to get her that made her change her mind about driving.

Cheryl

 

[calico2222]

If it's an issue with parking then yes the school district does have the right to say only certain grades can drive. I know some colleges don't permit freshmen to have cars on campus for the same reason. If they want to have a car they have to find off campus parking (and usually pay for a permit for the private lot) and walk 1/2 mile to their dorm. Not the ideal situation but I can understand it if there just isn't enough room. Upper classmen should have priority.

Sounds like your daughter has a good head on her shoulders. I also didn't get my license until my senior year. Mainly because my best friend at the time got her license the spring of her sophmore year and went by my house anyway so I had a ride, but also because at 16 I didn't feel ready to drive (part of that could have been my dad's fault though....NOT a good person to teach you how to drive. We had each other a nervous wreck! 

 ) I'm probably one of the only people around that had a learner's permit for...oh...2 years!

 

[calico2222]

BTW, I hope you all feel better soon! There are a lot of things going around right now. In fact, I'm home from work today which I shouldn't be since we have bigwigs up today but I really don't think they would be happy with me running to the bathroom every 10 minutes (TMI?? 

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