Every morning hundreds of cars fill up the senior parking lot and in the afternoon it becomes a cluttered, slow moving line of students anxious to get home. But there is much more to the parking spots than meets the eye.
After school, some students have jobs they need to get to and taking the bus is just is not an effective way to get there. Other students also want a spot in order to have peace of mind even if they are running late in the morning.
“As a junior, sometimes I would be running late and there would be no parking spaces, and that created a big problem for me, so I purchased a spot so I could come to school 10 minutes before the bell rang without any risks of not having a spot,” said senior Brett Smith.
Although, $200 seems to be a high price to pay for a parking spot, WS has no control over it. It is a set price across Fairfax County and our administrators cannot change or lower the price. Although some students don’t care about the price of the spot, some have been questioning where the money goes.
“The money obtained from the parking spots are sent to the General County Fund, the same people that set the price for the parking spots,” said Security Specialist Mike Ukele.
But not all of it is sent to the county fund, WS keeps 15 percent of the income to spend on parking lot repairs, maintenance and classroom enhancements such as blackboards and whiteboards.
“I did not know that the money went to the General County Fund, and we only got 15 percent, that explains why the prices are so high, so that our school can have more money to spend,” said Smith.
Of the approximately $50,000 WS raised from parking fees, our school was only allowed to keep about $7,000. But that’s a chunk of change compared to parking revenue. Other Fairfax County Public Schools such as Mount Vernon are reported to have earned as low as $465 in parking revenue, according to a recent Washington Post article. This is due to the set price across the county and students in the poorer districts who can’t afford to buy the parking spots.
This year, the spots were available only to seniors. The 300 parking spots sold out. There is actually a waiting list for the students who were not able to obtain a spot this year. Usually, not all the spots are sold, and a lottery is held for juniors who want a parking space. But since all the spots were bought by the seniors, there was no lottery this year.
As time goes on, students will probably see changes in the price of the parking spaces and who knows what else could change. No one really knows what our parking fees go toward in FCPS. But one thing’s for certain: The school district could rake in more cash from our need to find a convenient parking space next year if those in charge decided to raise the rate yet again.
“The price for a parking spot this year is $200, when I first arrived here, it was $100. Next year, it might go up to $250,” said Ukele.