There I was, sitting in class when the bell rang and the intercom called down about 10 people, primarily seniors. I thought nothing of it until I checked my Twitter news feed and saw multiple angry tweets from my peers posting photos of their newly issued parking violation tickets. Later that week I saw several creative photos of how students would pay their fine, including a bag with exactly 1,000 pennies to pay off a second-time violation. I am confident that many of you are familiar with this issue.

Although parking violations have been problematic in the past, they have reached a new level of ridiculous. Instead of focusing on more troubling issues (bullying, cheating, etc.) the administration is exhausting its authority on an issue as petty as a parking violation in a parking lot that does not adequately provide for its students. I understand the fact that there are guidelines of where students may and may not park. In theory, the guidelines set up by the administration would work perfectly. Staff and visitors have their assigned spots and students have theirs; the issue is that the facilities provided don’t work with our continually growing student body.

Instead of offering reasonable suggestions, administration continues to irritate the student body with such a miniscule problem. Instead of fining students for parking in one of few open spots or on an illegal curb, administration needs to come up with a practical solution. Considering the fact that class size is continuously growing, the issue will continue to get worse. Incoming classes are getting larger every year and more and more of those students are driving as freshmen and sophomores. Not letting freshmen drive to school would free up many spots. Though it may be inconvenient, many other schools have implemented this rule as well. Freshmen could instead be given cheaper bus rates and other incentives to carpool or walk to school.

The energy of the administration should be redirected towards more trying issues that are genuinely affecting students and coming up with practical solutions.