Grafton Globe Newspaper
Winter 2020 Edition
The student parking lot has been a popular area of attention this school year, so I decided to sit down with Mr. Pignataro to talk about the situation. We talked about the details of the student parking lot and the process of how parking permits are given to the students.
So how exactly does the school add new parking sports? Well since the beginning of the year, no parking spaces were added physically, but spaces were still given out to students even after the parking lot was full. Mr. Pignataro explained this process: “Physically we didn’t add any more spaces, they were spaces that were already existent, so what we did is we recounted [the number of unoccupied parking spaces] because we have to make sure that the staff for both the middle school and high school all have a spot, and once we determine that number, then we work our way from there.” After a recounting of the parking spaces is done, they can add more parking spaces from there, as Mr. Pignataro explains: “We need to go out there for probably 3 or 4 days and see how many open spots are there over that period of time. If we find that that there are some spots that are always open, then we can add those spots in.” Mr. Pignataro plans on checking the parking lot during the week of Halloween to see if there are any open spots. And if there are some open spots, he will give those spots to the students that had requested a parking permit, but could not get one because the parking lot was full. Mr. Pignataro emphasized the importance of doing this by bringing up the fact that many juniors will now be starting to get their licenses soon, so there will be a large increase in students that need a parking permit. Another thing that I brought up was the pavement area behind the middle school cafeteria. That pavement area is currently completely open with a lot of space, and I wondered why the school couldn’t just build a parking lot there to add more space. I asked Mr. Pignataro about this and gave me 4 reasons why that couldn’t be done. He explained: “Reason number one is safety. If there was ever an issue at the middle school or high school, could a fire truck get around? If there are so many cars over there, it would just be a safety issue. The second issue is about deliveries. Trucks need to be getting in over there, so that’s why we can’t have people parking there. The third reason is for our special education vans that come in the afternoon, they were having a lot of difficulties getting back there because of the number of cars. The fourth one is that we have the buses going to the back of the building, so we need to have that area clear.” Mr. Pignataro made it very clear why a parking lot can’t be added there. Fire truck entrance, truck deliveries, special ed vans, and the new bus routes all stand in the way of a parking lot addition in that area. I talked to Mr. Pignataro about students parking in the parking lot without a parking permit, and he told me that since the beginning of the year, he has caught ten to twelve people parking without a permit. He anticipated that there could be a chance that number increases, as he will go out and check the parking lot again in the coming weeks. The penalties for parking without a permit are as follows: a warning on the first offense, a $10 fine on the second offense, and on the third offense, the car could get towed. He explained the main problem of kids parking without a permit, as he said, “The kids that paid for a spot get angry if someone else is parking there that didn’t pay for a spot.” I asked if a situation like that happened this year, and he told me that it hasn’t happened yet this year, however, it has happened in previous years. Mr. Pignataro gave me some great details about the parking situation this year, and he made the entire process a lot more clear. Students might expect an increase in parking spots soon because he will check the parking spot to see if there are any extra spots. So if you are a student that couldn’t get a parking permit, don’t lose hope because you may be getting one soon.
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February 2020
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