Whether you walk, bike, drive, or take a bus to school, it can take awhile before you get onto the campus. With over three thousand students, there is bound to be traffic on your way to school. And with the combination of Winnetka’s strict parking restrictions and the residential area surrounding the school, parking doesn’t come easy for most students.
Scott Williams, the Assistant Principal for Student Services, understands the difficulty of parking.
“(Parking) is one of the restrictions we have of being a large high school landlocked in a residential area. There just aren’t a lot of places to park. We have over a thousand students and over the course of two semesters, 280 spots.”
The lack of spots stands as the main issue. The administration gives Senior parking priority to those who didn’t have a pass first semester.
Also stated in the application is that ‘no student will be given priority for reasons such as jobs, activities, athletics, distance, etc.’ Below that the application states that students living one and 1/2 miles away will be considered before the students living within that radius.
As far as the application process went for second semester parking for seniors, the number of students exceeded the amount of spots. “One of the reasons it may be an issue this year is because we have 140 spots. We had somewhere around 170 applicants, so unfortunately 30 people won’t have an opportunity to get a spot,” said Williams.
One of those thirty seniors was Maggie Brown. “I had a parking pass first semester because neither of my parents could drive me.” Brown, who is a senior helper, also used the car to get from Northfield to Winnetka. “For these reasons my parents got my sister and I a car.”
Being a senior helper, she wasn’t aware of the deadline. “I was almost never in advisory so I was never made aware of the deadline for the 2nd semester parking application,” said Brown.
“The day after the application needed to be turned in, I learned that it was already due,” she said. “I scrambled to get all the information ready and turned it in one day after the deadline. A few weeks later I learned that I didn’t get a pass.”
Maggie now gets to school through a combination of getting rides from friends and driving to Northfield a half an hour earlier to catch the shuttle bus.
“Each night, I have to figure out the logistics of getting to school. This was frustrating because I was doing something beneficial for our school and only missed the deadline by less than a day. Now the car I have to drive to school sits in my driveway.”
Another senior who was left out is Billy Maloney. As a result, Maloney, who had a first semester parking spot, ended up putting up flyers to houses around New Trier asking for an open spot. “My first email was a spot for $3,000. I couldn’t afford that,” said Maloney.
The emails came in with spots for less and less and he eventually settled for a $1,500 spot, which is triple the amount of the price for New Trier’s senior parking.
Maloney understands that it’s fair to give each student a chance both semesters, but doesn’t necessarily agree with it. “The school should realize that they are creating problems for students who became dependent on their route to school first semester,” he said.
Maggie Brown agrees with Maloney. “I think it’s ridiculous that a high school with this many students has to turn away people who have no other way to get to school. It’s not excusable at all.”
The main question the administration at New Trier has been getting is ‘Why didn’t I get a spot?’ Williams said that “In most cases it’s us saying to them, ‘You had one first semester and as a result you were put in a lottery. Sorry you didn’t win the lottery.’”