By Audrey Kim, Staff Reporter
Conestoga reinstated the five-day-a-week parking privilege for seniors this year, bringing an end to last year’s four-day-a-week parking policy. The current graduating Class of 2025 is smaller than the previous year’s by almost 100 students, leading administration to revert to the previous regulation.
Originally, the administration implemented the four-day policy with nearly 700 students in the Class of 2024 to aid parking spot shortages. Last year’s “Do Not Drive Day” required each senior to take one day off from parking on campus to accommodate Conestoga’s 350 parking spaces. It introduced transportation challenges for some students, especially those involved in sports who had to find alternative ways to practice on their designated “Do Not Drive Day.”
“On the tennis team last year, the seniors struggled a bit,” said senior and member of the girls’ tennis team Lauren Wu. “Sometimes our matches would fall on the no-park days, and more people would have to carpool to matches, which was inconvenient.”
Some students with free periods find the return to five-day-a-week parking beneficial as it provides the flexibility to drive to school daily. Senior Elliott Havel is grateful for the convenience.
“On days where I have to go to school at normal times, I have to wake up even earlier to get to school due to traffic piling up between 7:30-7:50,” Havel said. “But when I can arrive late to school, I’m able to get to school just before homeroom and save upwards of 30 minutes each morning, which lets me sleep more or catch up on additional assignments.”
As the school year progresses, Wu hopes that the full-week parking privilege continues and feels that the additional privileges from the new mixed-model schedule helps student drivers in general.
“I’m really glad that the five-day parking is back, and it works out especially well with the new schedule because now I can leave for lunch,” Wu said. “I hope ’Stoga keeps this going because I think it makes a lot of students’ lives easier.”
Audrey Kim can be reached at [email protected].
