By Lucy Stoter
Online Editor
After years of unenforced parking rules and nasty notes left on cars, the R.J. Reynolds High School administration has decided to start implementing stricter parking rules. For years, the parking lots at RJR have been known as chaotic and unorganized, with the “prime parking spots” in both the junior and senior lots constantly being taken, and students parking illegally.
“My parking spot was taken so many times,” RJR senior Na’leah Hairston said. “I would be in a rush to go to class, and I would come to school and see that my spot was taken. It was such an inconvenience. I would have to find another spot or take someone else’s spot.”
Seeing this was a common experience for many upperclassmen, RJR’s new assistant principal decided to make a change. Having experience in several schools across the county, Assistant Principal William Gray noticed the inconsistency with RJR’s parking policies compared to other schools. RJR was one of the only schools not punishing the illegal parking happening around campus. Starting this past summer, Gray set out to change the student body’s bad parking habits.
“First and foremost, if you’re parking illegally, meaning you’re not in a spot, you’ve kind of made up your own spot; those are the first things that I’ll look at,” Gray said. “We have a lot of different spots that are available, but sometimes students and teachers don’t park in those spots. What I try to do is give friendly reminders here and there that they should be in the right spot.”
These “friendly reminders” are printed warnings that the staff places on cars parked illegally. After a couple of these warnings, students will be fined, and a boot, a tire-locking device, will be attached to their car. With this policy, the faculty has decided to prioritize punishing illegal parking – students inventing spots in random areas – rather than the issue of stealing spots. However, when students park in spots that are not allotted to them, it creates a domino effect of stealing. Many of the students whose spots get taken are the ones who end up in the illegal spots.
“I actually have a parking pass, spot number 87,” RJR junior Thompson Myers said. “I got the parking infraction because someone was actually in my spot, so I couldn’t park there. And everything was full because I get to school later from my free period. So I had to end up kind of maneuvering around that and park in a spot that wasn’t actually considered a parking spot.”
Having your parking spot taken can be very frustrating for many students because it leaves them with no option, even though they have paid for their parking spot. But many are excited to see that something is finally being done to control the chaos.
“I love it,” Hairston said. “It makes people park where they are supposed to and helps ensure you get to park in the spot you paid for.”
While this new change at RJR may have caused some commotion the first couple of days back to school, it seems to have set a clearer expectation for where to park and where not to park. The implementation is benefiting tons of students and helps fix some of the long-lasting problems RJR has faced.