By Katherine Goff

You wake up twenty minutes later than your alarm to your mom yelling at you that you’re late. You scramble to put on a mismatched outfit and run out the door. After pulling out of your driveway, you find yourself stuck in St. Catherine’s traffic for an additional 15 minutes. When you arrive at school, at 8:27 a.m., you circle the parking lot four times. Three minutes later, you are still struggling to find a parking spot, and now you are tardy for your first period class.

I, alongside many fellow Upper School students, have been in this situation many times. Being late at least once during the entire school year is inevitable. Most of the time, I can blame myself for my fashionably late arrival, but other times, a slow truck on River Road, a detour off of Three Chopt, or an evil Suburban mom can extend my normal eight-minute drive to upwards of 20 minutes. Whether I arrive five minutes late or a half an hour late, I can never seem to find a parking spot. 

Over the course of the past five years, Collegiate’s Upper School has increased in size, with each class being larger than the previous. More students means more teenage drivers on campus, and more drivers results in fewer empty parking spots. Last year, the school made the decision to allow a few sophomore to park on campus, and according to Upper School Dean of Students Mark Palyo, twelve sophomores were allowed “to drive and park on campus in order to help with transportation to practices at the Robins Campus… Additionally, sophomores had a designated parking area at the bottom of the east lot.” Collegiate also had to adapt and find new ways to transport student athletes quickly and safely in order to get them to practice on time at Robins Campus. Students who rode the bus last year had to double mask and sit one person per seat in order to follow COVID protocols. Therefore, buses headed to Robins were operating at half-capacity, a major decrease from previous years. 

In previous years, juniors have taken turns parking in the River Road Presbyterian Church parking lot, near the Lower School, in order to open up the main lot. This year, there is construction in the church lot, resulting in the loss of 36 junior parking spots. While seniors were disappointed with this development, junior Hank Shield (‘23) is “extremely happy.” Brent Hailes (‘22), on the other hand, believes that the “long walk [to and from the church lot] was something we could all relate to and made us more thankful for the times we were able to park in the regular lot.” The church lot forced me to leave my house earlier, helping me avoid other private school traffic, but this did not make up for the mornings walking in the pouring rain, sweating through my shirt, or wiping out on the sidewalk. Currently, the class of 2022 is the smallest class in the Upper School, whereas the class of 2024 is the largest. Therefore, if the church lot is unavailable next year, parking will become an even greater issue. 

This year, there are 278 students, both juniors and seniors, who are allowed to park on campus. In total, there are 310 parking spaces on the Upper School campus. Since the parking spaces are also used by faculty and staff, spaces fill up quickly, and some students have trouble finding a parking spot if they arrive after 8:30 a.m.

Parking map for the 2021-2022 school year. Image credit: Mark Palyo.

For now, in order to make up for the lost parking spaces, new spots have been created. For example, 13 spots have been opened up for juniors in the South Business Lot. Also, the spaces where the buses used to park, at the south end of the East Lot by the creek, have now opened up for students. The spaces are extremely long in order to accommodate the buses; when students pull forward into those spots, there is remaining space behind their car.

Bus parking now used for students. Photo credit: Katherine Goff.

During Middle School carpool, however, parents have been blocking students in their spots while waiting for their children. Lacey Word (‘22) has “been blocked in twice by double stacking,” and Tucker Walker (‘22) was “late to [field hockey] practice” after getting trapped behind another car. When I have free period first and arrive at school at 9:15 a.m., the bus parking spaces are my only choice for parking. Luckily, I have not been blocked in, but I fear that when I walk out to my car at the end of the day, I will be blocked in by someone picking up their Middle Schooler.

Truck parked in the mulch. Photo credit: Katherine Goff.

If all spaces are filled, including the bus spots, students with trucks and Jeeps have permission to drive up on the curb and into the mulch for extra parking. Slate Lambert (‘23), who drives a truck, states, “I tend to get to school pretty early, even though I live close, so that I do not have to deal with the issues,” but the one time he parked in the mulch, he thought “it was pretty cool.” While parking in the mulch seems amusing, I worry about new drivers backing out at the end of the day. 

In the future, as the Collegiate community continues to grow, additional parking spaces may be needed. While Collegiate does not have the space for a larger parking lot, like the one at Douglas Freeman High School, more space would be beneficial for both students and faculty.

Featured image credit: Collegiate School.